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THE 
APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 



THE APPROACH TO 
PHILOSOPHY 



BY 
RALPH BARTON PERRY, Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1905 



Library oToongsessJ 

Iwu Copies deceived j 

MAY 29 1905 

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COPY B. 






Copyright, 1905, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTINO AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 






THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO 

MY FATHER 

AS A TOKEN" OF MY LOVE AND ESTEEM 



PREFACE 

In an essay on "The Problem of Philosophy at 
the Present Time," Professor Edward Caird says 
that "philosophy is not a first venture into a new 
field of thought, but the rethinking of a secular 
and religious consciousness which has been devel- 
oped, in the main, independently of philosophy." * 
If there be any inspiration and originality in this 
book, they are due to my great desire that philoso- 
phy should appear in its vital relations to more 
familiar experiences. If philosophy is, as is com- 
monly assumed, appropriate to a phase in the de- 
velopment of every individual, it should grow out 
of interests to which he is already alive. And if 
the great philosophers are indeed never dead, this 
fact should manifest itself in their classic or his- 
torical representation of a perennial outlook upon 
the world. I am not seeking to attach to philoso- 
phy a fictitious liveliness, wherewith to insinuate 
it into the good graces of the student. I hope 

* Edw. Caird: Literature and Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 207. 
vii 



Via PREFACE 

rather to be true to the meaning of philosophy. 
For there is that in its stand-point and its problem 
which makes it universally significant entirely 
apart from dialectic and erudition. These are 
derived interests, indispensable to the scholar, but 
quite separable from that modicum of philosophy 
which helps to make the man. The present book 
is written for the sake of elucidating the inevitable 
philosophy. It seeks to make the reader more 
solicitously aware of the philosophy that is in him, 
or to provoke him to philosophy in his own in- 
terests. To this end I have sacrificed all else to 
the task of mediating between the tradition and 
technicalities of the academic discipline and the 
more common terms of life. 

The purpose of the book will in part account 
for those shortcomings that immediately reveal 
themselves to the eye of the scholar. In Part I 
various great human interests have been selected 
as points of departure. I have sought to intro- 
duce the general stand-point and problem of phi- 
losophy through its implication in practical life, 
poetry, religion, and science. But in so doing 
it has been necessary for me to deal shortly with 
topics of great independent importance, and so risk 
the disfavor of those better skilled in these several 



PREFACE ix 

matters. This is evidently true of the chapter 
which deals with natural science. But the prob- 
lem which I there faced differed radically from 
those of the foregoing chapters, and the method 
of treatment is correspondingly different. In the 
case of natural science one has to deal with a 
body of knowledge which is frequently regarded 
as the only knowledge. To write a chapter about 
science from a philosophical stand-point is, in the 
present state of opinion, to undertake a polemic 
against exclusive naturalism, an attitude which is 
itself philosophical, and as such is well known in 
the history of philosophy as positivism or agnosti- 
cism. I have avoided the polemical spirit and 
method so far as possible, but have, nevertheless, 
here taken sides against a definite philosophical 
position. This chapter, together with the Conclu- 
sion, is therefore an exception to the purely in- 
troductory and expository representation which I 
have, on the whole, sought to give. The relatively 
great space accorded to the discussion of religion 
is, in my own belief, fair to the general interest 
in this topic, and to the intrinsic significance of 
its relation to philosophy. 

I have in Part II undertaken to furnish the 
reader with a map of the country to which he has 



X PREFACE 

been led. To this end I have attempted a brief 
survey of the entire programme of philosophy. 
An accurate and full account of philosophical 
terms can be found in such books as Kiilpe's "In- 
troduction to Philosophy" and Baldwin's "Diction- 
ary of Philosophy," and an attempt to emulate 
their thoroughness would be superfluous, even if 
it were conformable to the general spirit of this 
book. The scope of Part II is due in part to a 
desire for brevity, but chiefly to the hope of fur- 
nishing an epitome that shall follow the course 
of the natural and historical differentiation of the 
general philosophical problem. 

Finally, I have in Part III sought to present 
the tradition of philosophy in the form of general 
types. My purpose in undertaking so difficult a 
task is to acquaint the reader with philosophy in 
the concrete ; to show how certain underlying prin- 
ciples may determine the whole circle of philosoph- 
ical ideas, and give them unity and distinctive 
flavor. Part II offers a general classification of 
philosophical problems and conceptions indepen- 
dently of any special point of view. But I have 
in Part III sought to emphasize the point of view, 
or the internal consistency that makes a system of 
philosophy out of certain answers to the special 



PREFACE xi 

problems of philosophy. In such a division into 
types, lines are of necessity drawn too sharply. 
There will be many historical philosophies that 
refuse to fit, and many possibilities unprovided 
for. I must leave it to the individual reader to 
overcome this abstractness through his own reflec- 
tion upon the intermediate and variant stand- 
points. 

Although the order is on the whole that of pro- 
gressive complexity, I have sought to treat each 
chapter with independence enough to make it pos- 
sible for it to be read separately ; and I have pro- 
vided a carefully selected bibliography in the hope 
that this book may serve as a stimulus and guide 
to the reading of other books. 

The earlier chapters have already appeared as 
articles : Chapter I in the International Journal of 
Ethics, Vol. XIII, No. 4 ; Chapter II in the Philo- 
sophical Review, Vol. XI, Xo. 6 ; Chapter III in 
the Monist, Vol. XIV, Xo. 5 ; Chapter IV in the 
International Journal of Ethics, Vol. XV, Xo. 1 ; 
and some paragraphs of Chapter V in the Journal 
of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 
Vol. I, Xo. 7. I am indebted to the editors of 
these periodicals for permission to reprint with 
minor changes. 



xii PREFACE 

In the writing of this, my first book, I have 
been often reminded that a higher critic, skilled 
in the study of internal evidence, could probably 
trace all of its ideas to suggestions that have come 
to me from my teachers and colleagues of the De- 
partment of Philosophy in Harvard University. 
I have unscrupulously forgotten what of their 
definite ideas I have adapted to my own use, but 
not that I received from them the major portion 
of my original philosophical capital. I am espe- 
cially indebted to Professor William James for the 
inspiration and resources which I have received 
from his instruction and personal friendship. 

Ralph Barton Perry. 

Cambridge, March, 1905. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PART I 
APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY 

PAGE 

Chapter I. The Practical Man and the Philoso- 
pher 3 

§ 1. Is Philosophy a Merely Academic Interest?. ... 3 

§ 2. Life as a Starting-point for Thought 4 

§ 3. The Practical Knowledge of Means 8 

§ 4. The Practical Knowledge of the End or Purpose. 10 
§ 5. The Philosophy of the Devotee, the Man of Af- 
fairs, and the Voluptuary 12 

§ 6. The Adoption of Purposes and the Philosophy 

of Life 17 

Chapter II. Poetry and Philosophy 24 

§ 7. Who is the Philosopher-Poet? 24 

§ 8. Poetry as Appreciation 25 

§ 9. Sincerity in Poetry. Whitman 27 

§ 10. Constructive Knowledge in Poetry. Shake- 
speare 30 

§11. Philosophy in Poetry. The World- view. Omar 

Khayyam 36 

§ 12. Wordsworth 38 

§ 13. Dante 42 

§ 14. The Difference between Poetry and Philosophy 48 
xiii 



xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter III. The Religious Experience 53 

§ 15. The Possibility of Defining Religion 53 

§ 16. The Profitableness of Defining Religion 54 

§ 17. The True Method of Defining Religion 56 

§ 18. Religion as Belief 59 

§ 19. Religion as Belief in a Disposition or Attitude. 62 
§ 20. Religion as Belief in the Disposition of the Re- 
sidual Environment, or Universe 64 

§ 21. Examples of Religious Belief. 66 

§ 22. Typical Religious Phenomena. Conversion. . . 69 

§ 23. Piety )..{ 72 

§ 24. Religious Instruments, Symbolism, and Modes 

of Conveyance , 74 

§ 25. Historical Types of Religion. Primitive Re- 
ligions 77 

§ 26. Buddhism 78 

§ 27. Critical Religion 79 

Chapter IV. The Philosophical Implications of 

Religion 82 

§ 28. Resume of Psychology of Religion 82 

§ 29. Religion Means to be True 82 

§ 30. Religion Means to be Practically True. God is 
a Disposition from which Consequences May 

Rationally be Expected 85 

§ 31. Historical Examples of Religious Truth and 

Error. The Religion of Baal 88 

§ 32. Greek Religion 89 

§ 33. Judaism and Christianity 92 

§ 34. The Cognitive Factor in Religion 96 

§ 35. The Place of Imagination in Religion 97 

§ 36. The Special Functions of the Religious Imagi- 
nation 101 

§ 37. The Relation between Imagination and Truth 

in Religion 105 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 

PAGE 

§ 38. The Philosophy Implied in Religion and in Re- 
ligions 108 

Chapter V. Natural Science and Philosophy .... 114 
§ 39. The True Relations of Philosophy and Science. 

Misconceptions and Antagonisms 114 

§ 40. The Spheres of Philosophy and Science 117 

§ 41. The Procedure of a Philosophy of Science 120 

§ 42. The Origin of the Scientific Interest 123 

§ 43. Skill as Free 123 

§ 44. Skill as Social 126 

§ 45. Science for Accommodation and Construction . 127 
§ 46. Method and Fundamental Conceptions of 

Natural Science. The Descriptive Method . . 128 

§ 47. Space, Time, and Prediction 130 

§ 48. The Quantitative Method 132 

§ 49. The General Development of Science 134 

§ 50. The Determination of the Limits of Natural 

Science 135 

§ 51. Natural Science is Abstract 136 

§ 52. The Meaning of Abstractness in Truth 139 

§ 53. But Scientific Truth is Valid for Reality 142 

§ 54. Relative Practical Value of Science and Phi- 
losophy 143 



PART II 

THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY 

Chapter VI. Metaphysics and Epistomology 149 

§ 55. The Impossibility of an Absolute Division of 

the Problem of Philosophy 149 

§ 56. The Dependence of the Order of Philosophical 

Problems upon the Initial Interest 152 



XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

§ 57. Philosophy as the Interpretation of Life 152 

§ 58. Philosophy as the Extension of Science 154 

§ 59. The Historical Differentiation of the Philosoph- 
ical Problem. 155 

§ 60. Metaphysics Seeks a Most Fundamental Con- 
ception 157 

§ 61. Monism and Pluralism 159 

§ 62. Ontology and Cosmology Concern Being and 

Process 159 

§ 63. Mechanical and Teleological Cosmologies 160 

§ 64. Dualism 162 

§ 65. The New Meaning of Monism and Pluralism . . . 163 
§ 66. Epistemology Seeks to Understand the Possi- 
bility of Knowledge 164 

§ 67. Scepticism, Dogmatism, and Agnosticism .... 166 
§ 68. The Source and Criterion of Knowledge ac- 
cording to Empiricism and Rationalism. 

Mysticism 168 

§ 69. /The Relation of Knowledge to its Object ac- 
cording to Realism, and the Representative 

Theory 172 

§ 70. The Relation of Knowledge to its Object ac- 
cording to Idealism 175 

§ 71. Phenomenalism, Spiritualism, and Panpsy- 

chism 176 

§ 72. Transcendentalism, or Absolute Idealism. .... 177 

Chapter VII. The Normative Sciences and the 

Problems op Religion 180 

§ 73. The Normative Sciences 180 

§ 74. The Affiliations of Logic 182 

§ 75. Logic Deals with the Most General Conditions 

of Truth in Belief 183 

§ 76. The Parts of Formal Logic. Definition, Self- 
evidence, Inference, and Observation 184 

§ 77. Present Tendencies. Theory of the Judgment. 187 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xvn 

PAGE 

§ 78. Priority of Concepts 188 

§ 79. ^Esthetics Deals with the Most General Con- 
ditions of Beauty. Subjectivistic and For- 

malistic Tendencies 189 

§ 80. Ethics Deals with the Most General Conditions 

of Moral Goodness 191 

§ 81. Conceptions of the Good. Hedonism 191 

§ 82. Rationalism 193 

§ 83. Eudsemonism and Pietism. Rigorism and 

Intuitionism 194 

§ 84. Duty and Freedom. Ethics and Metaphysics 196 

§ 85. The Virtues, Customs, and Institutions 198 

§ 86. The Problems of Religion. The Special In- 
terests of Faith 199 

§ 87. Theology Deals with the Nature and Proof of 

God 200 

§ 88. The Ontological Proof of God 200 

§ 89. The Cosmological Proof of God 203 

§ 90. The Teleological Proof of God : 204 

§ 91. God and the World. Theism and Pantheism . . 205 

§ 92. Deism 206 

§ 93. Metaphysics and Theology 207 

§ 94. Psychology is the Theory of the Soul 208 

§ 95. Spiritual Substance 209 

§ 96. Intellectualism and Voluntarism 210 

§ 97. Freedom of the Will. Necessitarianism, De- 
terminism, and Indeterminism 211 

§ 98. Immortality. Survival and Eternalism 212 

§ 99. The Natural Science of Psychology. Its Prob- 
lems and Method 213 

\ 100. Psychology and Philosophy 216 

\ 101. Transition from Classification by Problems to 
Classification by Doctrines. Naturalism. 
Subjectivism. Absolute Idealism. Absolute 
Realism 217 



xvill TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PART III 
SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY 

PAGE 

Chapter VIII. Naturalism „ 223 

§ 102. The General Meaning of Materialism 223 

§ 103. Corporeal Being 224 

§ 104. Corporeal Processes. Hylozoism and Mech- 
anism 225 

§ 105. Materialism and Physical Science 228 

§ 106. The Development of the Conceptions of Phys- 
ical Science. Space and Matter 228 

§ 107. Motion and its Cause. Development and Ex- 
tension of the Conception of Force 231 

§ 108. The Development and Extension of the Con- 
ception of Energy 236 

§ 109. The Claims of Naturalism 239 

§ 110. The Task of Naturalism 241 

§ 111. The Origin of the Cosmos 242 

§ 112. Life. Natural Selection 244 

§ 113. Mechanical Physiology 246 

§ 114. Mind. The Reduction to Sensation 247 

§ 115. Automatism 248 

§116. Radical Materialism. Mind as an Epiphe- 

nomenon 250 

§ 117. Knowledge. Positivism and Agnosticism. . . 252 

§ 118. Experimentalism 255 

§ 119. Naturalistic Epistemology not Systematic. . . 256 

§ 120. General Ethical Stand-point 258 

§ 121. Cynicism and Cyrenaicism 259 

§ 122. Development of Utilitarianism. Evolution- 
ary Conception of Social Relations 260 

§ 123. Naturalistic Ethics not Systematic 262 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xix 

PAGE 

124. Naturalism as Antagonistic to Religion ...... 263 

125. Naturalism as the Basis for a Religion of Ser- 

vice, Wonder, and Renunciation 265 



Chapter IX. Subjectivism 267 

§ 126. Subjectivism Originally Associated with Rel- 
ativism and Scepticism 267 

§ 127. Phenomenalism and Spiritualism 271 

§ 128. Phenomenalism as Maintained by Berkeley. 
The Problem Inherited from Descartes and 

Locke 272 

§ 129. The Refutation of Material Substance 275 

§ 130. The Application of the Epistemological Prin- 
ciple 277 

§ 131. The Refutation of a Conceived Corporeal 

World 278 

§ 132. The Transition to Spiritualism 280 

§ 133. Further Attempts to Maintain Phenomenal- 
ism 281 

§ 134. Berkeley's Spiritualism. Immediate Knowl- 
edge of the Perceiver 284 

§ 135, Schopenhauer's Spiritualism, or Voluntarism. 

Immediate Knowledge of the Will 285 

§ 136. Panpsychism 287 

§ 137. The Inherent Difficulty in Spiritualism. No 

Provision for Objective Knowledge 288 

§ 138. Schopenhauer's Attempt to Universalize Sub- 
jectivism. Mysticism 290 

§ 139. Objective Spiritualism 292 

§ 140. Berkeley's Conception of God as Cause, Good- 
ness, and Order 293 

§ 141. The General Tendency of Subjectivism to 

Transcend Itself 297 

§ 142. Ethical Theories. Relativism 298 

§ 143. Pessimism and Self-denial 299 



xx TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

§ 144. The Ethics of Welfare 300 

§ 145. The Ethical Community 302 

§ 146. The Religion of Mysticism 303 

§ 147. The Religion of Individual Cooperation with 

God 304 

Chapter X. Absolute Realism 306 

§ 148. The Philosopher's Task, and the Philosopher's 

Object, or the Absolute 306 

§ 149. The Eleatic Conception of Being 309 

§ 150. Spinoza's Conception of Substance 311 

§ 151. Spinoza's Proof of God, the Infinite Substance. 

The Modes and the Attributes 312 

§ 152. The Limits of Spinoza's Argument for God . . 315 

§ 153. Spinoza's Provision for the Finite 317 

§ 154. Transition to Teleological Conceptions 317 

§ 155. Early Greek Philosophers not Self-critical. . . . 319 
§ 156. Curtailment of Philosophy in the Age of the 

Sophists 319 

§ 157. Socrates and the Self-criticism of the Phi- 
losopher 321 

§158. Socrates's Self-criticism a Prophecy of Truth . 323 

§ 159. The Historical Preparation for Plato 324 

§ 160. Platonism : Reality as the Absolute Ideal or 

Good 326 

§ 161. The Progression of Experience toward God. . 329 
§ 162. Aristotle's Hierarchy of Substances in Rela- 
tion to Platonism 332 

§ 163. The Aristotelian Philosophy as a Reconcilia- 
tion of Platonism and Spinozism 335 

§ 164. Leibniz's Application of the Conception of 
Development to the Problem of Imperfec- 
tion 336 

§ 165. The Problem of Imperfection Remains Un- 
solved 338 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxi 

PAGB 

§ 166. Absolute Realism in Epistemology. Ration- 
alism 339 

§ 167. The Relation of Thought and its Object in 

Absolute Realism 340 

§ 168. The Stoic and Spinozistic Ethics of Neces- 
sity 342 

§ 169. The Platonic Ethics of Perfection 344 

§ 170. The Religion of Fulfilment and the Religion 

of Renunciation 346 

Chapter XL Absolute Idealism 349 

§ 171. General Constructive Character of Absolute 

Idealism 349 

§ 172. The Great Outstanding Problems of Absolu- 
tism 351 

§ 173. The Greek Philosophers and the Problem 
of Evil. The Task of the New Absolu- 
tism 352 

§ 174. The Beginning of Absolute Idealism in Kant's 

Analysis of Experience 354 

§ 175. Kant's Principles Restricted to the Experi- 
ences which they Set in Order 356 

§ 176. The Post-Kantian Metaphysics is a Generali- 
zation of the Cognitive and Moral Conscious- 
ness as Analyzed by Kant. The Absolute 
Spirit . . , 358 

§ 177. Fichteanism, or the Absolute Spirit as Moral 

Activity 360 

§ 178. Romanticism, or the Absolute Spirit as Senti- 
ment 361 

§ 179. Hegelianism, or the Absolute Spirit as Dia- 
lectic 361 

§ 180. The Hegelian Philosophy of Nature and His- 
tory 363 

§ 181. Resumed Failure of Absolute Idealism to 

Solve the Problem of Evil 365 



xxn TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

§ 182. The Constructive Argument for Absolute 
Idealism is Based upon the Subjectivistic 
Theory of Knowledge 368 

§ 183. The Principle of Subjectivism Extended to 

Reason 371 

§ 184. Emphasis on Self-consciousness in Early 

Christian Philosophy 372 

§ 185. Descartes's Argument for the Independence 

of the Thinking Self 374 

§ 186. Empirical Reaction of the English Philoso- 
phers 376 

§ 187. To Save Exact Science Kant Makes it Depen- 
dent on Mind 377 

§ 188. The Post-Kantians Transform Kant's Mind- 
in-general into an Absolute Mind 380 

§ 189. The Direct Argument. The Inference from 

the Finite Mind to the Infinite Mind 382 

§190. The Realistic Tendency in Absolute Idealism . 385 

§ 191. The Conception of Self-consciousness Central 

in the Ethics of Absolute Idealism. Kant . 386 

§ 192. Kantian Ethics Supplemented through the 
Conceptions of Universal and Objective 
Spirit 388 

§ 193. The Peculiar Pantheism and Mysticism of 

Absolute Idealism 390 

§ 194. The Religion of Exuberant Spirituality 393 

Chapter XII. Conclusion 395 

§ 195. Liability of Philosophy to Revision Due to its 

Systematic Character 395 

§ 196. The One Science and the Many Philoso- 
phies 396 

§ 197. Progress in Philosophy. The Sophistication 

or Eclecticism of the Present Age 398 

§ 198. Metaphysics. The Antagonistic Doctrines of 

Naturalism and Absolutism . 399 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxm 

PAGE 

199. Concessions from the Side of Absolutism. 

Recognition of Nature. The Neo-Fich- 
teans 401 

200. The Neo-Kantians 403 

201. Recognition of the Individual. Personal 

Idealism 404 

202. Concessions from the Side of Naturalism. 

Recognition of Fundamental Principles .... 405 

203. Recognition of the Will. Pragmatism 407 

204. Summary and Transition to Epistemology . . . 408 

205. The Antagonistic Doctrines of Realism and 

Idealism. Realistic Tendency in Empirical 
Idealism 409 

206. Realistic Tendency in Absolute Idealism. 

The Conception of Experience 410 

207. Idealistic Tendencies in Realism. The Im- 

manence Philosophy 412 

208. The Interpretation of Tradition as the Basis 

for a New Construction 413 

209. The Truth of the Physical System, but Fail- 

ure of Attempt to Reduce all Experience 

to it 414 

210. Truth of Psychical Relations but Impossi- 

bility of General Reduction to them 415 

211. Truth of Logical and Ethical Principles. Va- 

lidity of Ideal of Perfection, but Impos- 
sibility of Deducing the Whole of Experi- 
ence from it 415 

212. Error and Evil cannot be Reduced to the 

Ideal 417 

213. Collective Character of the Universe as a 

Whole 419 

214. Moral Implications of Such Pluralistic Phi- 

losophy. Purity of the Good 420 

215. The Incentive to Goodness 422 

216. The Justification of Faith 423 



xxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGB 

§ 217. The Worship and Service of God 425 

§ 218. The Philosopher and the Standards of the 

Market-Place , 425 

§ 219. The Secularism of the Present Age 427 

§ 220. The Value of Contemplation for Life 428 

Bibliography 431 

Index 441 



PART I 

APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF 
PHILOSOPHY 



CHAPTER I 

THE PRACTICAL MAN AND THE PHILOSOPHER 

§ 1. Philosophy suffers the distinction of being 
regarded as essentially an academic pursuit. The 
is Philosophy term philosophy, to be sure, is used in 
a Merely common speech to denote a stoical man- 

Academic r 

interest? term philosophy , to be sure, is used in 
but this conception sheds little or no light upon the 
meaning of philosophy as a branch of scholarship. 
The men who write the books on " Epistemology " 
or " Ontology," are regarded by the average man 
of affairs, even though he may have enjoyed a 
" higher education," with little sympathy and less 
intelligence, l^ot even philology seems less con- 
cerned with the real business of life. The pursuit 
of philosophy appears to be a phenomenon of ex- 
treme and somewhat effete culture, with its own 
peculiar traditions, problems, and aims, and with 
little or nothing to contribute to the real enterprises 
of society. It is easy to prove to the satisfaction 

of the philosopher that such a view is radically 

3 



4 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

mistaken. But it is another and more serious mat- 
ter to bridge over the very real gap that separates 
philosophy and common-sense. Such an aim is 
realized only when philosophy is seen to issue from 
some special interest that is humanly important; 
or when, after starting in thought at a point where 
one deals with ideas and interests common to all, 
one is led by the inevitableness of consistent think- 
ing into the sphere of philosophy. 

§ 2. There is but one starting-point for reflec- 
tion when all men are invited to share in it. 
Life as a start- Though there be a great many special 

ing-pointfor , „ . „ 

Thought. platforms where special groups of men 
may take their stand together, there is only one 
platform broad enough for all. This universal 
stand-point, or common platform, is life. It is 
our more definite thesis, then, that philosophy, 
even to its most abstruse technicality, is rooted in 
life ; and that it is inseparably bound up with the 
satisfaction of practical needs, and the solution of 
practical problems. 

Every man knows what it is to live, and his 
immediate experience will verify those features of 
the adventure that stand out conspicuously. To 
begin with, life is our birthright. We did not ask 
for it, but when we grew old enough to be self- 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 5 

conscious we found ourselves in possession of it. 
]SFor is it a gift to be neglected, even if we had the 
will. As is true of no other gift of nature, we 
must use it, or cease to be. There is a unique 
urgency about life. But we have already implied 
more, in so far as we have said that it must be 
used, and have thereby referred to some form of 
movement or activity as its inseparable attribute. 
To live is to find one's self compelled to do some- 
thing. To do something — there is another impli- 
cation of life : some outer expression, some medium 
in which to register the degree and form of its 
activity. Such we recognize as the environment 
of life, the real objects among which it is placed ; 
which it may change, or from which it may suffer 
change. Not only do we find our lives as unso- 
licited active powers, but find, as well, an arena 
prescribed for their exercise. That we shall act, 
and in a certain time and place, and with reference 
to certain other realities, this is the general condi- 
tion of things that is encountered when each one 
of us discovers life. In short, to live means to be 
compelled to do something under certain circum- 
stances. 

There is another very common aspect of life 
that would not at first glance seem worthy of men- 



6 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tion. Not only does life, as we have just described 
it, mean opportunity, but it means self-conscious 
opportunity. The facts are such as we have found 
them to be, and as each one of us has previously 
found them for himself. But when we discover 
life for ourselves, we who make the discovery, and 
we who live, are identical. From that moment 
we both live, and know that we live. Moreover, 
such is the essential unity of our natures that our 
living must now express our knowing, and our 
knowing guide and illuminate our living. Con- 
sider the allegory of the centipede. From the 
beginning of time he had manipulated his count- 
less legs with exquisite precision. Men had re- 
garded him with wonder and amazement. But 
he was innocent of his own art, being a contrivance 
of nature, perfectly constructed to do her bidding. 
One day the centipede discovered life. He dis- 
covered himself as one who walks, and the newly 
awakened intelligence, first observing, then fore- 
seeing, at length began to direct the process. And 
from that moment the centipede, because he could 
not remember the proper order of his going, lost 
all his former skill, and became the poor clumsy 
victim of his own self-consciousness. This same 
self-consciousness is the inconvenience and the 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 7 

great glory of human life. We must stumble 
along as best we can, guided by the feeble light 
of our own little intelligence. If nature starts 
us on our way, she soon hands over the torch, and 
bids us find the trail for ourselves. Most men 
are brave enough to regard this as the best thing 
of all; some despair on account of it. In either 
case it is admittedly the true story of human life. 
We must live as separate selves, observing, fore- 
seeing, and planning. There are two things that 
we can do about it. We can repudiate our nat- 
ures, decline the responsibility, and degenerate 
to the level of those animals that never had our 
chance; or we can leap joyously to the helm, and 
with all the strength and wisdom in us guide our 
lives to their destination. But if we do the for- 
mer, we shall be unable to forget what might have 
been, and shall be haunted by a sense of igno- 
miny; and if we do the second, we shall experi- 
ence the unique happiness of fulfilment and self- 
realization. 

Life, then, is a situation that appeals to intelli- 
gent activity. Humanly speaking, there is no 
such thing as a situation that is not at the same 
time a theory. As we live we are all theorists. 
Whoever has any misgivings as to the practical 



8 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

value of theory, let him remember that, speaking 
generally of human life, it is true to say that there 
is no practice that does not issue at length from 
reflection. That which is the commonest experi- 
ence of mankind is the conjunction of these two, 
the thought and the deed. And as surely as we 
are all practical theorists, so surely is philosophy 
the outcome of the broadening and deepening 
of practical theory. But to understand how the 
practical man becomes the philosopher, we must 
inquire somewhat more carefully into the manner 
of his thought about life. 

§ 3. Let anyone inspect the last moment in his 
life, and in all probability he will find that his 
The Practical mind was employed to discover the 

Knowledge of 

Means. means to some end. He was already 

bent upon some definite achievement, and was 
thoughtful for the sake of selecting the economical 
and effectual way. His theory made his practice 
skilful. So through life his knowledge shows him 
how to work his will. Example, experience, and 
books have taught him the uses of nature and 
society, and in his thoughtful living he is enabled 
to reach the goal he has set for the next hour, day, 
or year of his activity. The long periods of 
human life are spent in elaborating the means to 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 9 

some unquestioned end. Here one meets the 
curious truth that we wake up in the middle of 
life, already making headway, and under the guid- 
ance of some invisible steersman. When first we 
take the business of life seriously, there is a con- 
siderable stock in trade in the shape of habits, 
and inclinations to all sorts of things that we never 
consciously elected to pursue. Since we do not 
begin at the beginning, our first problem is to 
accommodate ourselves to ourselves, and our first 
deliberate acts are in fulfilment of plans outlined 
by some predecessor that has already spoken for 
us. The same thing is true of the race of men. 
At a certain stage in their development men found 
themselves engaged in all manner of ritual and 
custom, and burdened with concerns that were not 
of their own choosing. They were burning in- 
cense, keeping festivals, and naming names, all 
of which they must now proceed to justify with 
myth and legend, in order to render intelligible 
to themselves the deliberate and self-conscious 
repetition of them. Even so much justification 
was left to the few, and the great majority con- 
tinued to seek that good which social usage coun- 
tenanced and individual predisposition confirmed. 
So every man of us acts from day to day for 



10 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

love's sake, or wealth's sake, or power's sake, or 
for the sake of some near and tangible object; 
reflecting only for the greater efficiency of his 
endeavor. 

§ 4. But if this be the common manner of think- 
ing about life, it does not represent the whole of 
The Practical suc ^ thought. Nor does it follow that 
^Emfor ° f because it occupies us so much, it is 
Purpose. therefore correspondingly fundamental. 
Like the myth makers of old, we all want more 
or less to know the reason of our ends. Here, 
then, we meet with a somewhat different type of 
reflection upon life, the reflection that underlies 
the adoption of a life purpose. It is obvious that 
most ends are selected for the sake of other ends, 
and so are virtually means. Thus one may strug- 
gle for years to secure a college education. This 
definite end has been adopted for the sake of a 
somewhat more indefinite end of self-advance- 
ment, and from it there issues a whole series of 
minor ends, which form a hierarchy of steps as- 
cending to the highest goal of aspiration. Now 
upon the face of things we live very unsystematic 
lives, and yet were we to examine ourselves in this 
fashion, we should all find our lives to be marvels 
of organization. Their growth, as we have seen, 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 11 

began before we were conscious of it; and we are 
commonly so absorbed in some particular flower 
or fruit that we forget the roots, and the design 
of the whole. But a little reflection reveals a re- 
markable unitary adjustment of parts. The unity 
is due to the dominance of a group of central pur- 
poses. Judged from the stand-point of experience, 
it seems bitter irony to say that everyone gets 
from life just what he wishes. But a candid 
searching of our own hearts will incline us to 
admit that, after all, the way we go and the length 
we go is determined pretty much by the kind and 
the intensity of our secret longing.^ That for 
which in the time of choice we are willing to sac- 
rifice all else, is the formula that defines the law 
of each individual life. All this is not intended 
to mean that we have each named a clear and 
definite ideal which is our chosen goal. On the 
contrary, such a conception may be almost mean- 
ingless to some of us. In general the higher the 
ideal the vaguer and less vivid is its presentation 
to our consciousness. But, named or unnamed, 
sharp or blurred, vivid or half-forgotten, there may 
be found in the heart of every man that which of 
all things he wants to be, that which of all deeds 
he wants to do. If he has had the normal youth 



12 HE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

of dreaming, he has seen it, and warmed to the 
picture of his imagination; if he has been some- 
what more thoughtful than the ordinary, his rea- 
son has denned it, and adopted it for his vocation ; 
if neither, it has been present as an undertone 
throughout the rendering of his more inevitable 
life. He will recognize it when it is named as 
the desire to do the will of God, or to have as 
good a time as possible, or to make other people 
as happy as possible, or to be equal to his respon- 
sibilities, or to fulfil the expectation of his mother, 
or to be distinguished, wealthy, or influential. 
This list of ideals is miscellaneous, and ethically 
reducible to more fundamental concepts, but these 
are the terms in which men are ordinarily con- 
scious of their most intimate purposes. We must 
now inquire respecting the nature of the thought 
that determines the selection of such a purpose, 
or justifies it when it has been unconsciously ac- 
cepted. 

§ 5. What is most worth while? So far as 
human action is concerned this obviously depends 
The Phiioso- u P on what is possible, upon what is 
Devofee^the ex P ec ted of us by our own natures, and 
Man of Affairs, U p 0n what interests and concerns are 

and the L 

voluptuary, conserved by the trend of events in our 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 13 

environment. What I had best do, presupposes 
what I have the strength and the skill to do, what 
I feel called upon to do, and what are the great 
causes that are entitled to promotion at my hands. 
It seems that practically we cannot separate the 
ideal from the real. We may feel that the high- 
est ideal is an immediate utterance of conscience, 
as mysterious in origin as it is authoritative in 
expression. We may be willing to defy the uni- 
verse, and expatriate ourselves from our natural 
and social environment, for the sake of the holy 
law of duty. Such men as Count Tolstoi have 
little to say of the possible, or the expedient, or the 
actual, and are satisfied to stand almost alone 
against the brutal facts of usage and economy. 
We all have a secret sense of chivalry, that 
prompts, however ineffectually, to a like devotion. 
But that which in such moral purposes appears 
to indicate a severance of the ideal and the real, 
is, if we will but stop to consider, only a severance 
of the ideal and the apparent. The martyr is 
more sure of reality than the adventurer. He is 
convinced that though his contemporaries and his 
environment be against him; the fundamental or 
eventual order of things is for him. He believes 
in a spiritual world more abiding, albeit less 



14 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

obvious, than the material world. Though every 
temporal event contradict him, he lives in the cer- 
tainty that eternity is his. Such an one may have 
found his ideal in the voice of God and His proph- 
ets, or he may have been led to God as the justi- 
fication of his irresistible ideal; but in either case 
the selection of his ideal is reasonable to him in 
so far as it is harmonious with the ultimate nature 
of things, or stands for the promise of reality. In 
this wise, thought about life expands into some 
conception of the deeper forces of the world, 
and life itself, in respect of its fundamental 
attachment to an ideal, implies some belief con- 
cerning the fundamental nature of its environ- 
ment. 

But lest in this account life be credited with too 
much gravity and import, or it seem to be as- 
sumed that life is all knight-errantry, let us turn 
to our less quixotic, and perhaps more effectual, 
man of affairs. He works for his daily bread, 
and for success in his vocation. He has selected 
his vocation for its promise of return in the form 
of wealth, comfort, fame, or influence. He like- 
wise performs such additional service to his family 
and his community as is demanded of him by pub- 
lic opinion and his own sense of responsibility. 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 15 

He may have a certain contempt for the man who 
sees visions. This may be his manner of testify- 
ing to his own preference for the ideal of useful- 
ness and immediate efficiency. But even so he 
would never for an instant admit that he was pur- 
suing a merely conventional good. He may be 
largely imitative in his standards of value, recog- 
nizing such aims as are common to some time or 
race; nevertheless none would be more sure than 
he of the truth of his ideal. Question him, and 
he will maintain that his is the reasonable life 
under the conditions of human existence. He 
may maintain that if there be a God, he can best 
serve Him by promoting the tangible welfare of 
himself and those dependent upon him. He may 
maintain that, since there is no God, he must win 
such rewards as the world can give. If he have 
something of the heroic in him, he may tell you 
that, since there is no God, he will labor to the 
uttermost for his fellow-men. Where he has not 
solved the problem of life for himself, he may 
believe himself to be obeying the insight of some 
one wiser than himself, or of society as expressed 
in its customs and institutions. But no man ever 
admitted that his life was purely a matter of ex- 
pediency, or that in his dominant ideal he was 



16 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the victim of chance. In the background of the 
busiest and most preoccupied life of affairs, there 
dwells the conviction that such living is appropri- 
ate to the universe; that it is called for by the 
circumstances of its origin, opportunities, and 
destiny. 

Finally, the man who makes light of life has of 
all men the most transparent inner consciousness. 
In him may be clearly observed the relation 
between the ideal and the reflection that is as- 
sumed to justify it. 

" A Moment's Halt — a momentary taste 
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste — 
And Lo! — the phantom Caravan has reach'd 
The Nothing it set out from — ..." 

" We are no other than a moving row 
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go 
Round with the Sun-illumin'd Lantern held 
In Midnight by the Master of the Show." 

Where the setting of life is construed in these 
terms, there is but one natural and appropriate 
manner of life. Once believing in the isolation 
and insignificance of life, one is sceptical of all 
worth save such as may be tasted in the moment 
of its purchase. If one's ideas and experiences 
are no concern of the world's, but incidents of a 
purely local and transient interest, they will real- 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 17 

ize most when they realize an immediate gratifi- 
cation. Where one does not believe that he is a 
member of the universe, and a contributor to its 
ends, he does well to minimize the friction that 
arises from its accidental propinquity, and to 
kindle some little fire of enjoyment in his own 
lonely heart. This is the life of abandonment to 
pleasure, accompanied by the conviction that the 
conditions of life warrant no more strenuous or 
heroic plan. 

§ 6. In such wise do we adopt the life purpose, 
or justify it when unconsciously adopted. The 
The Adoption pursuit of an ideal implies a belief in 

of Purposes 

and the its effectuality. Such a belief will in- 

of Life. variably appear when the groundwork 

of the daily living is laid bare by a little reflection. 
And if our analysis has not been in error, there 
is something more definite to be obtained from it. 
We all believe in the practical wisdom of our fun- 
damental ideals ; but we believe, besides, that such 
wisdom involves the sanction of the universe as 
a whole. The momentousness of an individual's 
life will be satisfied with nothing less final than 
an absolutely wise disposition of it. For every in- 
dividual, his life is all his power and riches, and 
is not to be spent save for the greatest good that 



18 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

he can reasonably pursue. But the solution of 
such a problem is not to be obtained short of a 
searching of entire reality. Every life will rep- 
resent more or less of such wisdom and enlighten- 
ment; and in the end the best selection of ideal 
will denote the greatest wealth of experience. It 
is not always true that he who has seen more will 
live more wisely, for in an individual case in- 
stinct or authority may be better sources of aspira- 
tion than experience. But we trust instinct and 
authority because we believe them to represent a 
comprehensive experience on the part of the race 
as a whole, or on the part of God. He whose 
knowledge is broadest and truest would know best 
what is finally worth living for. On this account, 
most men can see no more reasonable plan of life 
than obedience to God's will, for God in the abun- 
dance of his wisdom, and since all eternity is plain 
before him, must see with certainty that which is 
supremely worthy. 

We mean, then, that the selection of our ideals 
shall be determined by the largest possible knowl- 
edge of the facts pertaining to life. We mean to 
select as one would select who knew all about the 
antecedents and surroundings and remote conse- 
quences of life. In our own weakness and fini- 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 19 

tude we may go but a little way in the direction 
of such an insight, and may prefer to accept the 
judgment of tradition or authority, but we recog- 
nize a distinct type of knowledge as alone worthy 
to justify an individual's adoption of an ideal. 
That type of knowledge is the knowledge that com- 
prehends the universe in its totality. Such knowl- 
edge does not involve completeness of information 
respecting all parts of reality. This, humanly 
speaking, is both unattainable and inconceivable. 
It involves rather a conception of the kind of real- 
ity that is fundamental. For a wise purpose it 
is unnecessary that we should know many matters 
of fact, or even specific laws, provided we are con- 
vinced of the inner and essential character of the 
universe. Some of the alternatives are matters of 
every-day thought and speech. One cannot tell 
the simplest story of human life without disclos- 
ing them. To live the human life means to pur- 
sue ideals, that is, to have a thing in mind, and 
then to try to accomplish it. Here is one kind of 
reality and power. The planetary system, on the 
other hand, does not pursue ideals, but moves un- 
conscious of itself, with a mechanical precision 
that can be expressed in a mathematical formula ; 
and is representative of another kind of reality 



20 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

and power. Hence a very common and a very 
practical question: Is there an underlying law, 
like the law of gravitation, fundamentally and per- 
manently governing life, in spite of its apparent 
direction by ideal and aspiration ? Or is there 
an underlying power, like purpose, fundamentally 
and permanently governing the planetary system 
and all celestial worlds, in spite of the apparent 
control of blind and irresistible forces ? This is 
a practical question because nothing could be more 
pertinent to our choice of ideals. Nothing could 
make more difference to life than a belief in the 
life or lifelessness of its environment. The faiths 
that generate or confirm our ideals always refer to 
this great issue. And this is but one, albeit the 
most profound, of the many issues that arise from 
the desire to obtain some conviction of the inner 
and essential character of life. Though so inti- 
mately connected with practical concerns, these 
issues are primarily the business of thought. In 
grappling with them, thought is called upon for 
its greatest comprehensiveness, penetration, and 
self-consistency. By the necessity of concentra- 
tion, thought is sometimes led to forget its origin 
and the source of its problems. But in naming 
itself philosophy, thought has only recognized the 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 21 

definiteness and earnestness of its largest task. 
Philosophy is still thought about life, representing 
but the deepening and broadening of the common 
practical thoughtfulness. 

We who began together at the starting-point of 
life, have now entered together the haven of phi- 
losophy. It is not a final haven, but only the 
point of departure for the field of philosophy 
proper. Nevertheless that field is now in the 
plain view of the man who occupies the practical 
stand-point. He must recognize in philosophy a 
kind of reflection that differs only in extent and 
persistence from the reflection that guides and jus- 
tifies his life. He may not consciously identify 
himself with any one of the three general groups 
which have been characterized. But if he is 
neither an idealist, nor a philistine, nor a pleasure 
lover, surely he is compounded of such elements, 
and does not escape their implications. He de- 
sires something most of all, even though his high- 
est ideal be only an inference from the gradation 
of his immediate purposes. This highest ideal 
represents what he conceives to be the greatest 
worth or value attainable in the universe, and its 
adoption is based upon the largest generalization 
that he can make or borrow. The complete justi- 



22 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

fication of his ideal would involve a true knowl- 
edge of the essential character of the universe. 
For such knowledge he substitutes either authority 
or his own imperfect insight. But in either case 
his life is naturally and organically correlated 
with a thought about the universe in its totality, 
or in its deepest and essential character. Such 
thought, the activity and its results, is philoso- 
phy. Hence he who lives is, ipso facto, a philoso- 
pher. He is not only a potential philosopher, but 
a partial philosopher. He has already begun to 
be a philosopher. Between the fitful or prudential 
thinking of some little man of affairs, and the sus- 
tained thought of the devoted lover of truth, there 
is indeed a long journey, but it is a straight jour- 
ney along the same road. Philosophy is neither 
accidental nor supernatural, but inevitable and 
normal. Philosophy is not properly a vocation, 
but the ground and inspiration of all vocations. 
In the hands of its devotees it grows technical and 
complex, as do all efforts of thought, and to pur- 
sue philosophy bravely and faithfully is to encoun- 
ter obstacles and labyrinths innumerable. The 
general problem of philosophy is mother of a 
whole brood of problems, little and great. But 



THE PRACTICAL MAN AND PHILOSOPHER 23 

whether we be numbered among its devotees, or 
their beneficiaries, an equal significance attaches 
to the truth that philosophy is continuous 
with life. 



CHAPTER II 

POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 

§ 7. As the ultimate criticism of all human in- 
terests, philosophy may be approached by avenues 
Who is the as various as these interests. Only 

Philosopher- 
Poet? when philosophy is discovered as the 

implication of well-recognized special interests, is 
the significance of its function fully appreciated. 
For the sake of such a further understanding of 
philosophy, those who find either inspiration or 
entertainment in poetry are invited in the present 
chapter to consider certain of the relations between 
poetry and philosophy. 

We must at the very outset decline to accept 
unqualifiedly the poet's opinion in the matter, for 
he would not think it presumptuous to incorporate 
philosophy in poetry. " !No man," said Cole- 
ridge, " was ever yet a great poet without being at 
the same time a great philosopher." This would 
seem to mean that a great poet is a great philos- 
opher, and more too. We shall do better to begin 
with the prosaic and matter of fact minimum of 

24 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 25 

truth: some poetry is philosophical. This will 
enable us to search for the portion of philosophy 
that is in some poetry, without finally defining 
their respective boundaries. It may be that all 
true poetry is philosophical, as it may be that all 
true philosophy is poetical ; but it is much more 
certain that much actual poetry is far from philo- 
sophical, and that most actual philosophy was not 
conceived or written by a poet. The mere poet 
and the mere philosopher must be tolerated, if it 
be only for the purpose of shedding light upon the 
philosopher-poet and the poet-philosopher. And 
it is to the philosopher-poet that we turn, in the 
hope that under the genial spell of poetry we may 
be brought with understanding to the more forbid- 
ding land of philosophy. 

§ 8. Poetry is well characterized, though not 
defined, as an interpretation of life. The term 
Poetry as Ap- " ^ e " nere signifies the human pur- 
preciation. posive consciousness, and active pursuit 
of ends. An interpretation of life is, then, a 
selection and account of such values in human ex- 
perience as are actually sought or are worth the 
seeking. For the poet all things are good or bad, 
and never only matters of fact. He is neither an 
annalist nor a statistician, and is even an observer 



26 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

only for the sake of a higher design. He is one 
who appreciates, and expresses his appreciation so 
fittingly that it becomes a kind of truth, and a per- 
manently communicable object. That " unbodied 
joy," the skylark's song and flight, is through the 
genius of Shelley so faithfully embodied, that it 
may enter as a definite joy into the lives of count- 
less human beings. The sensuous or suggestive 
values of nature are caught by the poet's quick 
feeling for beauty, and fixed by his creative activ- 
ity. Or with his ready sympathy he may perceive 
the value of some human ideal or mastering pas- 
sion, and make it a reality for our common feeling. 
Where the poet has to do with the base and hate- 
ful, his attitude is still appreciative. The evil is 
apprehended as part of a dramatic whole having 
positive moral or aesthetic value. Moral ideas 
may appear in both poetry and life as the inspira- 
tion and justification of struggle. Where there is 
no conception of its moral significance, the repul- 
sive possesses for the poet's consciousness the 
aesthetic value of diversity and contrast. Even 
where the evil and ugly is isolated, as in certain 
of Browning's dramatic monologues, it forms, both 
for the poet and the reader, but a part of some 
larger perception of life or character, which is sub- 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 27 

lime or beautiful or good. Poetry involves, then, 
the discovery and presentation of human experi- 
ences that are satisfying and appealing. It is a 
language for human pleasures and ideals. Poetry 
is without doubt a great deal more than this, and 
only after a careful analysis of its peculiar lan- 
guage could one distinguish it from kindred arts : 
but it will suffice for our purposes to characterize 
and not differentiate. Starting from this most 
general truth respecting poetry, we may now look 
for that aspect of it whereby it may be a witness 
of philosophical truth. 

§ 9. For the answer to our question, we must 
turn to an examination of the intellectual elements 
sincerity in of poetry. In the first place, the conP 

Poetry. 

whitman. mon demand that the poet shall be ac- 
curate in his representations is suggestive of an* 
indispensable intellectual factor in his genius. 
As we have seen, he is not to reproduce nature, 
but the human appreciative experiencejrf nature. 
[Nevertheless, he must even here be true to his 
object. His art involves his ability to express \ 
genuinely and sincerely what he himself experi- [ 
ences in the presence of nature, or what he can i 
catch of the inner lives of others by virtue of his 
intelligent sympathy. No amount of emotion or 



28 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

even of imagination will profit a poet, unless he 
Lgan. render a true account of them. To be sure, 
he need not define, or even explain ; for it is his 
function to transfer the immediate qualities of ex- 
perience: but he must be able to speak the truth, 
and, in order to speak it, he must have known it. 
In all this, however, we have made no demand that 
the poet should see more than one thing at a time. 
Sincerity of expression does not require what is 
distinctly another mode of intelligence, comprehen- 
siveness of view. It is easier, and accordingly 
more usual, to render an account of the moments 
and casual units of experience, than of its totality. 
There are poets, little and great, who possess the 
intellectual virtue of sincerity, without the intel- 
lectual power of synthesis and reconciliation. 
This distinction will enable us to separate the in- 
telligence exhibited in all poetry, from that dis- 
tinct form of intelligence exhibited in such poetry 
as is properly to be called philosophical. 

The " barbarian " in poetry has recently been 
defined as " the man who regards his passions as 
their own excuse for being; who does not domes- 
ticate them either by understanding their cause or 
by conceiving their ideal goal." 1 One will read- 
1 George Santayana, in his Poetry and Religion, p. 176. 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 29 

ily appreciate the application of this definition to 
Walt Whitman. What little unity there is in this 
poet's world, is the composition of a purely sensu- 
ous experience, 

" The earth expending right hand and left hand, 
The picture alive, every part in its best light, 
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping 
where it is not wanted." 

In many passages Whitman manifests a marvel- 
lous ability to discover and communicate a fresh 
gladness about the commonest experiences. We 
cannot but rejoice with him in all sights and 
sounds. But though we cannot deny him truth, 
his truth is honesty and not understanding. The 
experiences in which he discovers so much worth, 
are random and capricious, and do not constitute 
a universe. To the solution of ultimate questions 
he contributes a sense of mystery, and the convic- 
tion 

" That you are here — that life exists and identity, 
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute 
a verse." 

His world is justly described by the writer just 
quoted as " a phantasmagoria of continuous vis- 
ions, vivid, impressive, but monotonous and hard 
to distinguish in memory, like the waves of the sea 



30 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

or the decorations of some barbarous temple, sub- 
lime only by the infinite aggregation pf par ts." 2 

As is Walt Whitman, so are many poets greater 
and less. Some who have seen the world-view, ex- 
hibit the same particularism in their lyric moods ; 
although, generally speaking, a poet who once 
has comprehended the world, will see the parts of 
it in the light of that wisdom. But Walt Whit- 
man is peculiarly representative of the poetry that 
can be true, without being wise in the manner that 
we shall come shortly to understand as the manner 
of philosophy. He is as desultory in his poet rap- 
tures as is the common man when he lives in his 
immediate experiences. The truth won by each is 
the clear vision of one thing, or of a limited col- 
lection of things, and not the broad inclusive vision 
of all things. 

§ 10. The transition from Whitman to Shake- 
speare may seem somewhat abrupt, but the very 
differences between these poets serve 

Constructive r 

Knowledge in ^ mar k ou t arL interesting affinity. 
Shakespeare. Neither has put any unitary construc- 
tion upon human life and its environment. 
Neither, as poet, is the witness of any world-view ; 
which will mean for us that neither is a philos- 

2 Santayana : op. cit., p. 180. 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 31 

opher-poet. As respects Shakespeare, this is a 
hard saying. We are accustomed to the critical 
judgment that finds in the Shakespearian dramas 
an apprehension of the universal in human life. 
But though this judgment is true, it is by no means 
conclusive as respects Shakespeare's relation to the 
philosophical type of thought. For there can be 
universality without philosophy. Thus, to know 
the groups and the marks of the vertebrates is to 
know a truth which possesses generality, in con- 
tradistinction to the particularism of Whitman's 
poetic consciousness. Even so to know well the 
groups and marks of human character, vertebrate 
and invertebrate, is to know that of which the aver- 
age man, in his hand to hand struggle with life, 
is ignorant. Such a wisdom Shakespeare pos- 
sessed to a unique degree, and it enabled him to 
reconstruct human life. He did not merely per- 
ceive human states and motives, but he understood 
human nature so well that he could create consist- 
ent men and women. Moreover, Shakespeare's 
knowledge was not only thus universal in being 
a knowledge of general groups and laws, but also 
in respect of its extensity. His understanding 
was as rich as it was acute. It is true, then, that 
Shakespeare read human life as an open book, 



32 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

knowing certainly the manner of human thinking 
and feeling, and the power and interplay of human 
motives. But it is equally true, on the other hand, 
that he possessed no unitary conception of the 
meaning and larger relations of human life. Such 
a conception might have been expressed either by 
means of the outlook of some dominating and per- 
sistent type of personality, or by a pervading sug- 
gestion of some constant world-setting for the 
variable enterprise of mankind. It could appear 
only provided the poet's appreciation of life in de- 
tail were determined by an interpretation of the 
meaning of life as a whole. Shakespeare appar- 
ently possessed no such interpretation. Even 
when Hamlet is groping after some larger truth 
that may bear upon the definite problems of life, 
he represents but one, and that a strange and un- 
usual, type of human nature. And Hamlet's re- 
flections, it should be noted, have no outcome. 
There is no Shakespearian answer to the riddles 
that Hamlet propounds. The poet's genius is not 
less amazing for this fact ; indeed, his peculiar dis- 
tinction can only be comprehended upon this basis. 
Shakespeare put no construction upon life, and by 
virtue of this very reserve accomplished an art of 
surpassing fidelity and vividness. The absence of 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 33 

philosophy in Shakespeare, and the presence of 
the most characteristic quality of his genius, may 
both be imputed by the one affirmation, that there 
is no Shakespearian point of view. 

This truth signifies both gain and loss. The 
philosophical criticism of life may vary from the 
ideal objectivity of absolute truth, to the subjec- 
tivity of a personal religion. Philosophy aims to 
correct the partiality of particular points of view 
by means of a point of view that shall comprehend 
their relations, and effect such reconciliations or 
transformations as shall enable them to constitute 
a universe. Philosophy always assumes the hypo- 
thetical view of omniscience. The necessity of 
such a final criticism is implicit in every scientific 
item of knowledge, and in every judgment that is 
passed upon life. Philosophy makes a distinct 
and peculiar contribution to human knowledge by 
its heroic effort to measure all knowledges and all 
ideals by the standard of totality. Nevertheless 
it is significant that no human individual can pos- 
sibly possess the range of omniscience. The most 
adequate knowledge of which any generation of 
men is capable, will always be that which is con- 
ceived by the most synthetic and vigorously meta- 
physical minds; but every individual philosophy 



34 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

will nevertheless be a premature synthesis. The 
effort to complete knowledge is the indispensable 
test of the adequacy of prevailing conceptions, but 
the completed knowledge of any individual mind 
will shortly become an historical monument. It will 
belong primarily to the personal life of its creator, 
as the articulation of his personal covenant with 
the universe. There is a sound justification for 
such a conclusion of things in the case of the indi- 
vidual, for the conditions of human life make it 
inevitable; but it will always possess a felt unity, 
and many distinct features, that are private and 
subjective. Now such a projection of personality, 
with its coloring and its selection, Shakespeare has 
avoided; and very largely as a consequence, his 
dramas are a storehouse of genuine human nature. 
Ambition, mercy, hate, madness, guilelessness, con- 
ventionality, mirth, bravery, deceit, purity — these, 
and all human states and attributes save piety, are 
upon his pages as real, and as mysterious withal, 
as they are in the great historical society. For 
an ordinary reader, these states and attributes are 
more real in Hamlet or Lear than in his own 
direct experience, because in Hamlet and Lear he 
can see them with the eye and intelligence of gen- 
ius. But Shakespeare is the world all over again, 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 35 

and there is loss as well as gain in such realism. 
Here is human life, no doubt, and a brilliant pag- 
eantry it is ; but human life as varied and as prob- 
lematic as it is in the living. Shakespeare's fun- 
damental intellectual resource is the historical and 
psychological knowledge of such principles as 
govern the construction of human natures. The 
goods for which men undertake, and live or die, 
are any goods, justified only by the actual human 
striving for them. The virtues are the old win- 
ning virtues of the secular life, and the heroisms 
of the common conscience. Beyond its empirical 
generality, his knowledge is universal only in the 
sense that space and time are universal. His con- 
sciousness contains its representative creations, and 
expresses them unspoiled by any transforming 
thought. His poetic consciousness is like the very 
stage to which he likens all the world: men and 
women meet there, and things happen there. The 
stage itself creates no unity save the occasion and 
the place. Shakespeare's consciousness is univer- 
sal because it is a fair field with no favors. But 
even so it is particular, because, though each may 
enter and depart in peace, when all enter together 
there is anarchy and a babel of voices. All 
Shakespeare is like all the world seen through the 



36 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

eyes of each of its inhabitants. Human experi- 
ence in Shakespeare is human experience as every- 
one feels it, as comprehensive as the aggregate of 
innumerable lives. But human experience in phi- 
losophy is the experience of all as thought by a 
synthetic mind. Hence the wealth of life depicted 
by Shakespeare serves only to point out the phi- 
losopher's problem, and to challenge his powers. 
Here he will find material, and not results; much 
to philosophize about, but no philosophy. 

§ 11. The discussion up to this point has attrib- 
uted to poetry very definite intellectual factors 
Philosophy in that nevertheless do not constitute phi- 

Poetry. The 

World-view, losophy. Walt Whitman speaks his 

Omar Khay- 

yam. feeling with truth, but m general mani- 

fests no comprehensive insight. Shakespeare has 
not only sincerity of expression but an understand- 
ing mind. He has a knowledge not only of par- 
ticular experiences, but of human nature; and a 
consciousness full and varied like society itself. 
But there is a kind of knowledge possessed by 
neither, the knowledge sought by coordinating all 
aspects of human experience, both particular and 
general. Not even Shakespeare is wise as one 
who, having seen the whole, can fundamentally 
interpret a part. But though the philosopher-poet 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 37 

may not yet be found, we cannot longer be ignorant 
of his nature. He will be, like all poets, one who 
appreciates experiences or finds things good, and 
he will faithfully reproduce the values which he 
discovers. But he must justify himself in view 
of the fundamental nature of the universe. The 
values which he apprehends must be harmonious, 
and so far above the plurality of goods as to trans- 
cend and unify them. The philosopher-poet will 
find reality as a whole to be something that accred- 
its the order of values in his inner life. He will 
not only find certain things to be most worthy 
objects of action or contemplation, but he will see 
why they are worthy, because he will have con- 
strued the judgment of the universe in their 
favor. 

In this general sense, Omar Khayyam is a phi- 
losopher-poet. To be sure his universe is quite the 
opposite of that which most poets conceive, and is 
perhaps profoundly antagonistic to the very spirit 
of poetry ; but it is none the less true that the joys 
to which Omar invites us are such as his universe 
prescribes for human life. 

" Some for the Glories of This World ; and some 
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; 
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, 
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum." 



38 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Herein is both poetry and philosophy, albeit but 
a poor brand of each. We are invited to occupy 
ourselves only with spiritual cash, because the 
universe is spiritually insolvent. The immedi- 
ately gratifying feelings are the only feelings that 
the world can guarantee. Omar Khayyam is a 
philosopher-poet, because his immediate delight in 
" youth's sweet-scented manuscript " is part of a 
consciousness that vaguely sees, though it cannot 
grasp, " this sorry scheme of things entire." 

" Drink for you know not whence you come, nor why; 
Drink for you know not why you go, nor where." 

§ 12. But the poet in his world-view ordinarily 
sees other than darkness. The same innate spir- 
Wordsworth. itual enterprise that sustains religious 
faith leads the poet more often to find the universe 
positively congenial to his ideals, and to ideals in 
general. He interprets human experience in the 
light of the spirituality of all the world. It is to 
Wordsworth that we of the present age are chiefly 
indebted for such imagery, and it will profit us 
to consider somewhat carefully the philosophical 
quality of his poetry. 

Walter Pater, in introducing his appreciation 
of Wordsworth, writes that " an intimate con- 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 39 

sciousness of the expression of natural things, 
which weighs, listens, penetrates, where the earlier 
mind passed roughly by, is a large element in the 
complexion of modern poetry." We recognize at 
once the truth of this characterization as applied 
to Wordsworth. But there is something more dis- 
tinguished about this poet's sensibility even than 
its extreme fineness and delicacy ; a quality that is 
suggested, though not made explicit, by Shelley's 
allusion to Wordsworth's experience as " a sort of 
thought in sense." Nature possessed for him not 
merely enjoyable and describable characters of 
great variety and minuteness, but an immediately 
apprehended unity and meaning. It would be a 
great mistake to construe this meaning in sense 
as analogous to the crude symbolism of the educa- 
tor Froebel, to whom, as he said, " the world of 
crystals proclaimed, in distinct and univocal terms, 
the laws of human life." Wordsworth did not 
attach ideas to sense, but regarded sense itself as 
a communication of truth. We readily call to 
mind his unique capacity for apprehending the 
characteristic flavor of a certain place in a certain 
moment of time, the individuality of a situation. 
Now in such moments he felt that he was receiving 
intelligences, none the less direct and significant 



40 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

for their inarticulate form. Like the boy on 

Windermere, whom he himself describes, 

" while he hung 
Loitering, a gentle shock of mild surprise 
Has carried far into his heart the voice 
Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene 
Would enter unawares into his mind, 
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, 
Its woodsy and that uncertain heaven received 
Into the bosom of the steady lake." 

For our purpose it is essential that we should 
recognize in this appreciation of nature, expressed 
in almost every poem that Wordsworth wrote, a 
consciousness respecting the fundamental nature 
of the world. Conversation, as we know, de- 
notes an interchange of commensurable meanings. 
Whatever the code may be, whether words or the 
most subtle form of suggestion, communication is 
impossible without community of nature. Hence, 
in believing himself to be holding converse with 
the so-called physical world, Wordsworth conceives 
that world as fundamentally like himself. He 
finds the most profound thing in all the world to 
be the universal spiritual life. In nature this life 
manifests itself most directly, clothed in its own 
proper dignity and peace. But it may be discov- 
ered in the humanity that is most close to nature, 
in the avocations of plain and simple people, and 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 41 

the unsophisticated delights of children ; and, with 

the perspective of contemplation, even " among the 

multitudes of that huge city." 

So Wordsworth is rendering a true account of 

his own experience of reality when, as in " The 

Prelude," he says unequivocally: 

" A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides, 
And in the heart of man ; invisibly 
It comes to works of unreproved delight, 
And tendency benign; directing those 
Who care not, know not, think not, what they do." 

Wordsworth is not a philosopher-poet because by 
searching his pages we can find an explicit philo- 
sophical creed such as this, but because all the joys 
of which his poet-soul compels him to sing have their 
peculiar note, and compose their peculiar harmony, 
by virtue of such an indwelling consciousness. Here 
is one who is a philosopher in and through his 
poetry. He is a philosopher in so far as the detail 
of his appreciation finds fundamental justification 
in a world-view. From the immanence of " the 
universal heart " there follows, not through any 
mediate reasoning, but by the immediate experi- 
ence of its propriety, a conception of that which 
is of supreme worth in life. The highest and best 
of which life is capable is contemplation, or the 
consciousness of the universal indwelling of God. 



42 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Of those who fail to live thus fittingly in the midst 
of the divine life^ Walter Pater speaks for Words- 
worth as follows: 

"To higher or lower ends they move too often with some- 
thing of a sad countenance, with hurried and ignoble gait, 
becoming, unconsciously, something like thorns, in their 
anxiety to bear grapes ; it being possible for people, in the 
pursuit of even great ends, to become themselves thin 
and impoverished in spirit and temper, thus diminish- 
ing the sum of perfection in the world at its very 
sources." 3 

The quiet and worshipful spirit, won by the culti- 
vation of the emotions appropriate to the presence 
of nature and society, is the mark of the complet- 
est life and the most acceptable service. Thus for 
Wordsworth the meaning of life is inseparable 
from the meaning of the universe. In apprehend- 
ing that which is good and beautiful in human 
experience, he was attended by a vision of the 
totality of things. Herein he has had to do, if 
not with the form, at any rate with the very sub- 
stance of philosophy. 

§ 13. Unquestionably the supreme philosopher- 
poet is Dante. He is not only philosophical in the 
Dante. temper of his mind, but his greatest 

poem is the incarnation of a definite system of 

3 Appreciations, p. 59. 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 43 

philosophy, the most definite that the world has 
seen. That conception of the world which in the 
thirteenth century found argumentative and or- 
derly expression in the " Summa Theologias " of 
Thomas of Aquino, and constituted the faith of 
the church, is visualized by Dante, and made the 
basis of an interpretation of life. 

The " Divina Commedia " deals with all the 
heavens to the Empyrean itself, and with all spirit- 
ual life to the very presence of God. It derives 
its imagery from the cosmology of the day, its 
dramatic motive from the Christian and Greek 
conceptions of God and his dealings with the 
world. Sin is punished because of the justice of 
God; knowledge, virtue, and faith lead, through 
God's grace and mercy manifested in Christ, to a 
perpetual union with Him. Hell, purgatory, and 
paradise give place and setting to the events of 
the drama. But the deeper meaning of the poem 
is allegorical. In a letter quoted by Lowell, Dante 
writes : 

"The literal subject of the whole work is the state of the 
soul after death, simply considered. But if the work be 
taken allegorically the subject is man, as by merit or de- 
merit, through freedom of the will, he renders himself 
liable to the reward or punishment of justice." 4 

4 Letter to Can Grande. See Lowell's Essay on Dante, p. 34. 



44 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

In other words, the inner and essential meaning 
of the poem has to do not with external retribution, 
but with character, and the laws which determine 
its own proper ruin or perfection. The punish- 
ments described in the " Inferno " are accounts of 
the state of guilt itself, implications of the will 
that has chosen the part of brutishness. Sin itself 
is damnable and deadening, but the knowledge 
that the soul that sinneth shall die is the first way 
of emancipation from sin. The guidance of Virgil 
through hell and purgatory signifies the knowledge 
of good and evil, or moral insight, as the guide 
of man through this life of struggle and progress. 
The earthly paradise, at the close of the " Purga- 
torio," represents the highest state to which human 
character can attain when choice is determined by 
ordinary experience, intelligence, and understand- 
ing. Here man stands alone, endowed with an 
enlightened conscience. Here are uttered the last 
words of Virgil to Dante, the explorer of the spir- 
itual country: 

" Expect no more or word or sign from me. Free, up- 
right, and sane is thine own free will, and it would be 
wrong not to act according to its pleasure ; wherefore thee 
over thyself I crown and mitre." 5 

5 Purgatorio, Canto XXVII. Translation by Norton, 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 45 

But moral self-reliance is not the last word. As 

Beatrice, the image of tenderness and holiness, 

comes to Dante in the earthly paradise, and leads 

him from the summit of purgatory into the heaven 

of heavens, and even to the eternal light ; so there 

is added to the mere human, intellectual, and 

moral resources of the soul, the sustaining power 

of the divine grace, the illuminating power of 

divine truth, and the transforming power of divine 

love. Through the aid of this higher wisdom, the 

journey of life becomes the way to God. Thus 

the allegorical truth of the " Divina Commedia " 

is not merely an analysis of the moral jaature of 

man, but the revelation of a universal spiritual 

order, manifesting itself in the moral evolution 

of the individual, and above all in his ultimate 

community with the eternal goodness. 

"Thou shouldst not, if I deem aright, wonder more at 
thy ascent, than at a stream if from a high mountain it 
descends to the base. A marvel it would be in thee, if, 
deprived of hindrance, thou hadst sat below, even as 
quiet by living fire in earth would be." 6 

Such, in brief, is Dante's world-view, so suggestive 
of the freer idealistic conceptions of later thought 
as to justify a recent characterization of him as 
one who, " accepting without a shadow of a doubt 
6 Paradiso, Canto I. 



46 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

or hesitation all the constitutive ideas of mediaeval 
thought and life, grasped them so firmly and gave 
them such luminous expression that the spirit in 
them broke away from the form." 7 

But it must be added, as in the case of Words- 
worth, that Dante is a philosopher-poet not be- 
cause St. Thomas Aquinas appears and speaks with 
authority in the Thirteenth Canto of the " Para- 
diso," nor even because a philosophical doctrine 
can be consistently formulated from his writings, 
but because his consciousness of life is informed 
with a sense of its universal bearings. There is 
a famous passage in the Twenty-second Canto of 
the " Paradiso," in which Dante describes himself 
as looking down upon the earth from the starry 
heaven. 

"'Thou art so near the ultimate salvation/ began Bea- 
trice, 'that thou oughtest to have thine eyes clear and 
sharp. And therefore ere thou further enterest it, look 
back downward, and see how great a world I have already 
set beneath thy feet, in order that thy heart, so far as it 
is able, may present itself joyous to the triumphant crowd 
which comes glad through this round ether.' With my 
sight I returned through each and all the seven spheres, 
and saw this globe such that I smiled at its mean sem- 
blance; and that counsel I approve as the best which 
holds it of least account; and he who thinks of other 
things maybe called truly worthy." 

7 Edward Caird, in his Literature and Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 24. 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 47 

Dante's scale of values is that which appears from 
the starry heaven. His austere piety, his invin- 
cible courage, and his uncompromising hatred of 
wrong, are neither accidents of temperament nor 
blind reactions, but compose the proper character 
of one who has both seen the world from God, 
and returned to see God from the world. He was, 
as Lowell has said, " a man of genius who could 
hold heartbreak at bay for twenty years, and would 
not let himself die till he had done his task " ; 
and his power was not obstinacy, but a vision of 
the ways of God. He knew a truth that justified 
him in his sacrifices, and made a great glory of 
his defeat and exile. Even so his poetry or ap- 
preciation of life is the expression of an inward 
contemplation of the world in its unity or essence. 
It is but an elaboration of the piety which he 
attributes to the lesser saints of paradise, when he 
has them say : 

"Nay, it is essential to this blessed existence to hold our- 
selves within the divine will, whereby our very wills are 
made one. So that as we are from stage to stage through- 
out this realm, to all the realm is pleasing, as to the King 
who inwills us with His will. And His will is our peace; 
it is that sea whereunto is moving all that which It creates 
and which nature makes." 8 

8 Paradiso. Canto III. 



48 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

§ 14. There now remains the brief task of dis- 
tinguishing the philosopher-poet from the philoso- 
The Difference P ner himself. The philosopher-poet is 
Poetry and one wno ? having made the philosophical 
Philosophy. p i n t f v i ew hi s own, expresses himself 
in the form of poetry. The philosophical point 
of view is that from which the universe is compre- 
hended in its totality. The wisdom of the philos- 
opher is the knowledge of each through the knowl- 
edge of all. Wherein, then, does the poet, when 
possessed of such wisdom, differ from the philoso- 
pher proper ? To this question one can give read- 
ily enough the general answer, that the difference 
lies in the mode of utterance. Furthermore, we 
have already given some account of the peculiar 
manner of the poet. He invites us to experience 
with him the beautiful and moving in nature and 
life. That which the poet has to express, and 
that which he aims to arouse in others, is an appre- 
ciative experience. He requires what Words- 
worth calls " an atmosphere of sensation in which 
to move his wings." Therefore if he is to be 
philosophical in intelligence, and yet essentially a 
poet, he must find his universal truth in immediate 
experience. He must be one who, in seeing the 
many, sees the one. The philosopher-poet is he 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 49 

who visualizes a fundamental interpretation of the 
world. " A poem," says one poet, " is the very 
image of life expressed in its eternal truth." 

The philosopher proper, on the other hand, has 
the sterner and less inviting task of rendering such 
an interpretation articulate to thought. That 
which the poet sees, the philosopher must define. 
That which the poet divines, the philosopher must 
calculate. The philosopher must dig for that 
which the poet sees shining through. As the poet 
transcends thought for the sake of experience, the 
philosopher must transcend experience for the sake 
of thought. As the poet sees all, and all in each, 
so the philosopher, knowing each, must think all 
consistently together, and then know each again. 
It is the part of philosophy to collect and criticise 
evidence, to formulate and coordinate conceptions, 
and finally to define in exact terms. The reani- 
mation of the structure of thought is accomplished 
primarily in religion, which is a general con- 
ception of the world made the basis of daily 
living. 

For religion there is no subjective correlative 
less than life itself. Poetry is another and more 
circumscribed means of restoring thought to life. 
By the poet's imagination, and through the art of 



50 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

his expression, thought may be sensuously per- 
ceived. " If the time should ever come." says 
Wordsworth, " when what is now called Science, 
thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on, 
as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will 
lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, 
and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a 
dear and genuine inmate of the household of 
man." 9 As respects truth, philosophy has an in- 
dubitable priority. The very sternness of the phi- 
losopher's task is due to his supreme dedication to 
truth. But if validity be the merit of philosophy, 
it can well be supplemented by immediacy, which 
is the merit of poetry. Presuppose in the poet 
conviction of a sound philosophy, and we may say 
with Shelley, of his handiwork, that " it is the per- 
fect and consummate surface and bloom of all 
things ; it is as the odor and the color of the rose 
to the texture of the elements which compose it, 
as the form and splendor of unfaded beauty to the 
secrets of anatomy and corruption." " Indeed," 
as he adds, " what were our consolations on this 
side of the grave — and our aspirations beyond it — 
if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire 

9 Observations prefixed to the second edition of Lyrical 
Ballads. 



POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 51 

from those eternal regions where the owl-winged 
faculty of calculation dare not ever soar ? " 10 

The unity in outlook, attended by differences of 
method and form, which may exist between poet 
and philosopher, is signally illustrated by the rela- 
tion between Goethe and Spinoza. What Goethe 
saw and felt, Spinoza proved and defined. The 
universal and eternal substance was to Spinoza, as 
philosopher, a theorem, and to Goethe, as poet, a 
perception and an emotion. Goethe writes to 
Jacobi that when philosophy " lays itself out for 
division," he cannot get on with it, but when it 
" confirms our original feeling as though we were 
one with nature," it is welcome to him. In the 
same letter Goethe expresses his appreciation of 
Spinoza as the complement of his own nature : 

" His all-reconciling peace contrasted with my all-agita- 
ting endeavor; his intellectual method was the opposite 
counterpart of my poetic way of feeling and expressing 
myself; and even the inflexible regularity of his logical 
procedure, which might be considered ill-adapted to moral 
subjects, made me his most passionate scholar and his 
devoted adherent. Mind and heart, understanding and 
sense, were drawn together with an inevitable elective 
affinity, and this at the same time produced an intimate 
union between individuals of the most different types." 11 

10 A Defence of Poetry. 

11 Quoted by Caird in his Literature and Philosophy, Vol. I, 
p. 60 



52 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

It appears, then, that some poets share with all 
philosophers that point of view from which the 
horizon line is the boundary of all the world. 
Poetry is not always or essentially philosophical, 
but may be so; and when the poetic imagination 
restores philosophy to immediacy, human experi- 
ence reaches its most exalted state, excepting only 
religion itself, wherein God is both seen and also 
served. ISTor is the part of philosophy in poetry 
and religion either ignoble or presumptuous, for, 
humanly speaking, " the owl-winged faculty of cal- 
culation " is the only safe and sure means of access 
to that place on high, 

" Where the nightingale doth sing 
Not a senseless, tranced thing, 
But a divine melodious truth; 
Philosophic numbers smooth ; 
Tales and golden histories 
Of heaven and its mysteries." 



CHAPTER III 

THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 

§ 15. The least religious experience is so mys- 
terious and so complex that a moderate degree of 
The Possibility reflection upon it tends to a sense of 

of Defining 

Religion. intellectual impotence. " If I speak," 
says Emerson, " I define and confine, and am less." 
One would gladly set down religion among the un- 
speakable things and avoid the imputation of de- 
grading it. It is certain that the enterprise of 
defining religion is at present in disrepute. It has 
been undertaken so often and so unsuccessfully that 
contemporary students for the most part prefer 
to supply a list of historical definitions of religion, 
and let their variety demonstrate their futility. 
Metaphysicians and psychologists agree that in 
view of the differences of creed, ritual, organiza- 
tion, conduct, and temperament that have been true 
of different religions in different times and places, 
one may as well abandon the idea that there is a 

constant element. 

53 



54 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

But on the other hand we have the testimony 
afforded by the name religion ; and the ordinary 
judgments of men to the effect that it signifies 
something to be religious, and to be more or less 
religious. There is an elementary logical prin- 
ciple to the effect that a group name implies cer- 
tain common group characters. Impatience with 
abstract or euphemistic definitions should not blind 
us to the truth. Even the psychologist tends in 
his description of religious phenomena to single out 
and emphasize what he calls a typical religious ex- 
perience. And the same applies to the idealist's 
treatment of the matter. 1 Religion, he reasons, 
is essentially a development of which the true 
meaning can be seen only in the higher stages. 
The primitive religion is therefore only implicit 
religion. But lower stages cannot be regarded as 
belonging to a single development with higher 
stages, if there be not some actual promise of the 
later in the earlier, or some element which endures 
throughout. It is unavoidable, then, to assume 
that in dealing with religion we are dealing Avith 
a specific and definable experience. 

§ 16. The profitableness of undertaking such a 
definition is another matter. It may well be that 

1 Cf. Caird: The Evolution of Religion, Lectures II, III. 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 55 

in so human and practical an affair as religion, 
definition is peculiarly inappropriate. But is there 
The Profit- no ^ a ^ uman an d practical value in the 
abieness of very defining of religion ? Is there not 
Religion. a demand for it in the peculiar rela- 
tion that exists between religion and the progress 
of enlightenment ? Religion associates itself with 
the habits of society. The progress of enlighten- 
ment means that more or less all the time, and very 
profoundly at certain critical times, society must 
change its habits. The consequence is that religion 
is likely to be abandoned with the old habits. The 
need of a new religion is therefore a chronic one. 
The reformer in religion, or the man who wishes 
to be both enlightened and religious, is chiefly oc- 
cupied with the problem of disentangling religion 
pure and undefiled from definite discredited prac- 
tices and opinions. And the solution of the prob- 
lem turns upon some apprehension of the essence 
of religion. There is a large amount of necessary 
and unnecessary tragedy due to the extrinsic con- 
nection between ideas and certain modes of their 
expression. There can be no more serious and 
urgent duty than that of expressing as directly, 
and so as truly as possible, the great permanent 
human concerns. The men to whom educational 



56 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

reform has been largely due have been the men 
who have remembered for their fellows what this 
whole business of education is after all for. Co- 
menius and Pestalozzi served society by stripping 
educational activity of its historical and institu- 
tional accessories, and laying bare the genuine 
human need that these are designed to satisfy. 
There is a similar virtue in the insistent attempt 
to distinguish between the essential and the acces- 
sory in religion. 

§ 17. Although declining to be discouraged by 
the conspicuousness of past failures in this connec- 
The True tion, one may well profit by them. The 
n^n ° f amazing complexity of religious phe- 
Reiigion. nomena must somehow be seen to be con- 
sistent with their common nature. The religious 
experience must not only be found, but must also 
be reconciled with " the varieties of religious ex- 
perience." The inadequacy of the well-known 
definitions of religion may be attributed to several 
causes. The commonest fallacy is to define relig- 
ion in terms of a religion. My definition of re- 
ligion must include my brother's religion, even 
though he live on the other side of the globe, and 
my ancestor's religion, in spite of his prehistoric 
remoteness. Error may easily^afise through the 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 57 

attempt to define religion in terms of my own re- 
ligion, or what I conceive to be the true religion. 
Whatever the relation between ideal religion and 
actual religion, the field of religion contains by 
common consent cults that must on their own 
grounds condemn one another; religions that are 
bad religions, and yet religions. 

A more enlightened fallacy, and a more danger- 
ous one, is due to the supposition that religion can 
be defined exclusively in terms of some department 
of human nature. There have been descriptions 
of religion in terms of feeling, intellect, and con- 
duct respectively. But it is always easy to over- 
throw such a description, by raising the question 
of its application to evidently religious experiences 
that belong to some other aspect of life. Religion 
is not feeling, because there are many phlegmatic, 
God-fearing men whose religion consists in good 
works. Religion is not conduct, for there are 
many mystics whose very religion is withdrawal 
from the field of action. Religion is not intellec- 
tion, for no one has ever been able to formulate a 
creed that is common to all religions. Yet with- 
out a doubt one must look for the essence of relig- 
ion in human nature. The present psychological 
interest in religion has emphasized this truth. 



58 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

How, then, may we describe it in terms of certain 
constant conditions of human life, and yet escape 
the abstractness of the facultative method ? Mod- 
ern psychology suggests an answer in demon- 
strating the interdependence of knowledge, feeling, 
and volition. 2 The perfect case of this unity is 
belief. The believing experience is cognitive in 
intent, but practical and emotional as well in con- 
tent. I believe what I take for granted; and the 
object of my belief is not merely known, but also 
felt and acted upon. What I believe expresses 
itself in my total experience. 

There is some hope, then, of an adequate defi- 
nition of the religious experience, if it be regarded 
as belonging to the psychological type of belief. 3 
Belief, however, is a broader category than relig- 
ion. There must be some religious type of believ- 
ing. An account of religion in terms of believing, 
and the particular type of it here in question, 
would, then, constitute the central stem of a psy- 
chology of religion, and affords the proper concep- 
tions for a description of the religious experience. 
Even here the reservation must be made that belief 
is always more than the believing state, in that it 

2 Cf. Leuba: Introduction to a Psychological Study of Relig- 
ion, Monist, Vol. XI, p. 195. 
3 Cf. Leuba: Ibid. 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 59 

means to be true. 4 " Hence to complete an account 
of religion one should consider its object, or its 
cognitive implications. But this direct treatment 
of the relation between religion and philosophy 
must be deferred until in the present chapter we 
shall have come to appreciate the inwardness of 
the religious consciousness. To this end we must 
permit ourselves to be enlightened by the experi- 
ence of religious people as viewed from within. 
It is not our opinion of a man's religion that is 
here in question, but the content and meaning 
which it has for him. 

"I would have you," says Fielding, in his "Hearts of 
Men," "go and kneel beside the Mahommedan as he 
prays at the sunset hour, and put your heart to his and 
wait for the echo that will surely come. ... I 
would have you go to the hillman smearing the stone 
with butter that his god may be pleased, to the woman 
crying to the forest god for her sick child, to the boy 
before his monks learning to be good. No matter where 
you go, no matter what the faith is called, if you have 
the hearing ear, if your heart is in unison with the heart 
of the world, you will hear always the same song." 5 

§ 18. The general identification of religion with 

belief is made without serious difficulty. The 

essential factor in belief, is, as we have 

Religion ' ' 

as Belief. seen, the reaction of the whole person- 
* Cf. § 29. 5 P. 322. 



60 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ality to a fixed object or accepted situation. A 
similar principle underlies common judgments 
about a man's religion. He is accounted most re- 
ligious whose religion penetrates his life most inti- 
mately. In the man whose religion consists in the 
outer exercise of attendance upon church, we rec- 
ognize the sham. He appears to be religious. 
He does one of the things which a religious man 
would do; but an object of religious faith is not 
the constant environment of his life. He may or 
may not feel sure of God from his pew, but God 
is not among the things that count in his daily 
life. God does not enter into his calculations or 
determine his scale of values. Again, discursive 
thinking is regarded as an interruption of religion. 
When I am at pains to justify my religion, I am 
already doubting; and for common opinion doubt 
is identical with irreligion. In so far as I am 
religious, my religion stands in no need of justifi- 
cation, even though I regard it as justifiable. In 
my religious experience I am taking something for 
granted ; in other words I act about it and feel 
about it in a manner that is going to be determined 
by the special conditions of my mood and tem- 
perament. The mechanical and prosaic man ac- 
knowledges God in his mechanical and prosaic 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 61 

way. He believes in divine retribution as he 
believes in commercial or social retribution. He 
is as careful to prepare for the next world as he 
is to be respectable in this. The poet, on the other 
hand, believes in God after the manner of his 
genius. Though he worship God in spirit he may 
conduct his life in an irregular manner peculiar 
to himself. Difference of mood in the same in- 
dividual may be judged by the same measure. 
When God is most real to him, brought home to 
him most vividly, or consciously obeyed, in these 
moments he is most religious. When, on the other 
hand, God is merely a name to him, and church 
a routine, or when both are forgotten in the daily 
occupations, he is least religious. His life on the 
whole is said to be religious in so far as periods 
of the second type are subordinated to periods of 
the first type. Further well-known elements of 
belief, corollaries of the above, are evidently pres- 
ent in religion. A certain imagery remains con- 
stant throughout an individual's experience. He 
comes back to it as to a physical object in space. 
And although religion is sporadically an exclusive 
and isolated affair, it tends strongly to be social. 
The religious object, or God, is a social object, 
common to me and to my neighbor, and presup- 



62 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

posed in our collective undertakings. This reduc- 
tion of religion to the type of the believing state 
should thus provide us with an answer to that old 
and fundamental question concerning the relative 
priority of faith and works. The test of the faith 
is in the works, and the works are religious in so 
far as they are the expression of the faith. Re- 
ligion is not the doing of anything nor the feel- 
ing of anything nor the thinking of anything, 
but the reacting as a whole, in terms of all pos- 
sible activities of human life, to some accepted 
situation. 

§ 19. We may now face the more interesting 
but difficult question of the special character of 
Religion as religious belief. In spite of the fact 
Belief in a ^ t in these days the personality of God 

Disposition or </ r J 

Attitude. j s ften regarded as a transient feature 
of religion, that type of belief which throws most 
light upon the religious experience is the belief in 
persons. Our belief in persons consists in the 
practical recognition of a more or less persistent, 
disposition toward ourselves. The outward be- 
havior of our fellow-men is construed in terms of 
the practical bearing of the attitude which it im- 
plies. The extraordinary feature of such belief 
is the disproportion between its vividness and the 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 63 

direct evidence for it. Of this we are most aware 
in connection with those personalities which we 
regard as distinctly friendly or hostile to ourselves. 
We are always more or less clearly in the presence 
of our friends and enemies. Their well-wishing 
or their ill-wishing haunts the scene of our living. 
There is no more important constituent of what 
the psychologists call our " general feeling tone." 
There are times when we are entirely possessed by 
a state that is either exuberance in the presence of 
those who love us, or awkwardness and stupidity 
in the presence of those whom we believe to sus- 
pect and dislike us. The latter state may easily 
become chronic. Many men live permanently in the 
presence of an accusing audience. The inner life 
which expresses itself in the words, "Everybody 
hates me ! " is perhaps the most common form 
of morbid self-consciousness. On the other hand, 
buoyancy of spirits springs largely from a con- 
stant faith in the good-will of one's fellows. In 
this case one is filled with a sense of security, and 
is conscious of a sympathetic reinforcement that 
adds to private joys and compensates for private 
sorrows. And this sense of attitude is wonder- 
fully discriminating. We can feel the presence of 
a " great man," a " formidable person," a superior 



64 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

or inferior, one who is interested or indifferent to 
our talk, and all the subtlest degrees of approval 
and disapproval. 

A similar sensibility may quicken us even in 
situations where no direct individual attitude to 
ourselves is implied. We regard places and com- 
munities as congenial when we are in sympathy 
with the prevailing purposes or standards of value. 
We may feel ill at ease or thoroughly at home 
in cities where we know no single human soul. 
Indeed, in a misanthrope like Rousseau (and who 
has not his Rousseau moods ! ) the mere absence of 
social repression arouses a most intoxicating sense 
of tunefulness and security. Nature plays the 
part of an indulgent parent who permits all sorts 
of personal liberties. 

" The view of a fine country, a succession of agree- 
able prospects, a free air, a good appetite, and the health 
I gain by walking; the freedom of inns, and the distance 
from everything that can make me recollect the de- 
pendence of my situation, conspire to free my soul, and 
give boldness to my thoughts, throwing me, in a manner, 
into the immensity of things, where I combine, choose, 
and appropriate them to my fancy, without restraint or 
fear. I dispose of all nature as I please." 6 

§ 20. In such confidence or distrust, inspired 
6 Rousseau: Confessions, Book IV, p. 125. 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 65 

originally by the social environment, and similarly 
suggested by other surroundings of life, we have 
Religion as the key to the religious consciousness. 
Disposition of But ^ ^ s now time to add that in the 
Environment case °^ re ligi° n these attitudes are Con- 
or universe. cerne( J w ith the universal or supernatu- 
ral rather than with present and normal human 
relationships. Religious reactions are " total re- 
actions." 

" To get at them," says William James, " you must 
go behind the foreground of existence and reach down 
to that curious sense of the whole residual cosmos as an 
everlasting presence, intimate or alien, terrible or amus- 
ing, lovable or odious, which in some degree everyone 
possesses. This sense of the world's presence, appealing 
as it does to our peculiar individual temperament, makes 
us either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, 
gloomy or exultant about life at large; and our reaction, 
involuntary and inarticulate and often half unconscious 
as it is, is the completest of all our answers to the ques- 
tion, ' What is the character of this universe in which we 
dwell ? '" 7 

This residual environment, or profounder realm 
of tradition and nature, may have any degree of 
unity from chaos to cosmos. For religion its sig- 

7 William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, 
p. 35. The italics are mine. I am in the present chapter 
under constant obligation to this wonderfully sympathetic 
and stimulating book. 



66 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

nificance lies in the idea of original and far-reach- 
ing power rather than in the idea of totality. But 
that which is at first only " beyond," is practically 
the same object as that which comes in the develop- 
ment of thought to be conceived as the " world " or 
the " universe." We may therefore use these latter 
terms to indicate the object of religion, until the 
treatment of special instances shall define it more 
precisely. Religion is, then, man's sense of the 
disposition of the universe to himself. We shall 
expect to find, as in the social phenomena with 
which we have just dealt, that the manifestation 
of this sense consists in a general reaction appro- 
priate to the disposition so attributed. He will be 
fundamentally ill at ease, profoundly confident, or 
will habitually take precautions to be safe. The 
ultimate nature of the world is here no specula- 
tive problem. The savage who could feel some joy 
at living in the universe would be more religious 
than the sublimest dialectician. It is in the vivid- 
ness of the sense of this presence that the acute- 
ness of religion consists. I am religious in so far 
as the whole tone and temper of my living reflects 
a belief as to what the universe thinks of such 
as me. 

§ 21. The examples that follow are selected 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 67 

because their differences in personal flavor serve 
Examples of to throw into relief their common re- 

Religious ■ . 

Belief, ligious character. Theodore Parker, in 

describing his own boyhood, writes as follows: 

" I can hardly think without a shudder of the terrible 
effect the doctrine of eternal damnation had on me. 
How many, many hours have I wept with terror as I 
lay on my bed, till, between praying and weeping, sleep 
gave me repose. But before I was nine years old this 
fear went away, and I saw clearer light in the goodness 
of God. But for years, say from seven till ten, I said 
my prayers with much devotion, I think, and then con- 
tinued to repeat, 'Lord, forgive my sins,' till sleep came 
on me." 8 

Compare with this Stevenson's Christmas letter to 
his mother, in which he says : 

"The whole necessary morality is kindness; and it 
should spring, of itself, from the one fundamental doc- 
trine, Faith. If you are sure that God, in the long run, 
means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if 
happy, surely you should be kind." 9 

Here is destiny frowning and destiny smiling, 
but in each case so real, so present, as to be imme- 
diately responded to with helpless terror and with 
grateful warm-heartedness. 

The author of the " Imitatio Christi " speaks 
thus of the daily living of the Christian : 

8 Chad wick: Theodore Parker, p. 18. 

9 Stevenson: Letters, Vol. I, p. 229. 



68 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

" The life of a Christian who has dedicated himself to 
the service of God should abound with eminent virtues 
of all kinds, that he may be really the same person which 
he is by outward appearance and profession. Indeed, 
he ought not only to be the same, but much more, in his 
inward disposition of soul; because he professes to serve 
a God who sees the inward parts, a searcher of the heart 
and reins, a God and Father of spirits: and therefore, 
since we are always in His sight, we should be exceed- 
ingly careful to avoid all impurity, all that may give 
offence to Him whose eyes cannot behold iniquity. We 
should, in a word, so far as mortal and frail nature can, 
imitate the blessed angels in all manner of holiness, 
since we, as well as they, are always in His presence. 
. . . And good men have always this notion of the 
thing. For they depend upon God for the success of 
all they do, even of their best and wisest undertakings." 10 

Such is to be the practical acknowledgment of God 
in the routine of life. The more direct response 
to this presence appears abundantly in St. Augus- 
tine's conversation and reminiscence with God. 

"How evil have not my deeds been; or if not my 
deeds my words; or if not my words my will? But 
Thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and Thy right 
hand had respect unto the profoundness of my death, 
and removed from the bottom of my heart that abyss of 
corruption. And this was the result, that I willed not to 
do what I willed, and willed to do what thou willedst. 
. . . How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be 
without the delights of trifles! And what at one time I 

10 Thomas a Kempis: Imitation of Christ, Chap. XIX. 
Translation by Stanhope, p. 44. 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 69 

feared to lose, it was now a joy to me to put away. For 
Thou didst cast them away from me, Thou true and 
highest sweetness. Thou didst cast them away, and 
instead of them didst enter in Thyself — sweeter than 
all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter 
than all light, but more veiled than all mysteries; more 
exalted than all honor, but not to the exalted in their 
own conceits. Now was my soul free from the gnawing 
cares of seeking and getting. . . . And I babbled 
unto Thee my brightness, my riches, and my health, 
the Lord my God." 11 

In these two passages we meet with religious con- 
duct and with the supreme religious experience, 
the direct worship of God. In each case the heart 
of the matter is an individual's indubitable con- 
viction of the world's favorable concern for him. 
The deeper order of things constitutes the real and 
the profoundly congenial community in which he 
lives. 

§ 22. Let us now apply this general account of 

the religious experience to certain typical religious 

phenomena: conversion; piety; and re- 

Reiigious ligious instruments, symbolisms, and 

Phenomena: ° ' ° 7 

conversion, modes of conveyance. Although recent 
study of the phenomenon of conversion has 
brought to light a considerable amount of interest- 

11 St. Augustine: Confessions, Book I, Chap. I. Transla- 
tion in Schaff : Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 129. 



70 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ing material, there is some danger of misconceiv- 
ing its importance. The pyschology of conversion 
is primarily the psychology of crisis or radical 
alteration, rather than the psychology of religion. 
For the majority of religions men and women con- 
version is an insignificant event, and in very many 
cases it never occurs at all. Religion is more 
purely present where it is normal and monotonous. 
But this phenomenon is nevertheless highly sig- 
nificant in that religion and irreligion are placed 
in close juxtaposition, and the contribution of re- 
ligion at its inception thereby emphasized. In 
general it is found that conversion takes place dur- 
ing the period of adolescence. But this is the time 
of the most sudden expansion of the environment 
of life; a time when there is the awakening con- 
sciousness of many a new presence. This is some- 
times expressed by saying that it is a period of 
acute self -consciousness. Life is conscious of itself 
as over against its inheritance; the whole setting 
of life sweeps into view. Some solution of the 
life problem, some coming to terms with the uni- 
verse, is the normal issue of it. Religious con- 
version signifies, then, that in this fundamental 
adjustment a man defines and accepts for his life 
a certain attitude on the part of the universe. The 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 71 

examples cited by the psychologists, as well as the 
generalizations which they derive, bear out this 
interpretation. 

" General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, 
considers that the first vital step in saving outcasts con- 
sists in making them feel that some decent human being 
cares enough for them to take an interest in the question 
whether they are to rise or sink." 12 

The new state is here one of courage and hope 
stimulated by the glow of friendly interest. The 
convert is no longer " out in the cold." He is 
told that the world wishes him well, and this is 
brought home to him through representations of the 
tenderness of Christ, and through the direct min- 
isterings of those who mediate it. But somehow 
the convert must be persuaded to realize all this. 
He must believe it before it can mean anything 
to him. He is therefore urged to pray — a pro- 
ceeding that is at first ridiculous to him, since 
it involves taking for granted what he disbelieves. 
But therein lies the critical point. It is peculiar 
to the object in this case that it can exist only 
for one who already believes in it. The psychol- 
ogists call this the element of " self -surrender." 
To be converted a man must somehow suffer his 

12 James: Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 203. 



72 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

surroundings to put into him a new heart, which 
may thereupon confirm its object. Such belief is 
tremendously tenacious because it so largely cre- 
ates its own evidence. Once believe that " God, 
in the long run, means kindness by you," and you 
are likely to stand by it to the end — the more so 
in this case because the external evidence either way 
is to the average man so insufficient. Such a belief 
as this is inspired in the convert, not by reasoning, 
but by all the powers of suggestion that personality 
and social contagion can afford. 

§ 23. The psychologists describe piety as a sense 
of unity. One feels after reading their accounts 
Piety. that they are too abstract. For there 

are many kinds of unity, characteristic of widely 
varying moods and states. Any state of rapt at- 
tention is a state of unity, and this occurs in the 
most secular and humdrum moments of life. Nor 
does it help matters to say that in the case of relig- 
ion this unity must have been preceded by a state 
of division ; for we cannot properly characterize 
any state of mind in terms of another state unless 
the latter be retained in the former. And that 
which is characteristic of the religious sense of 
unity would seem to be just such an overcoming of 
difference. There is a recognition of two distinct 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 73 

attitudes, which may be more or less in sympathy 
with one another, but which are both present even 
in their fullest harmony. Were I to be taken out 
of myself so completely as to forget myself, I 
should inevitably lose that sense of sympathy from 
which arises the peculiar exultation of religious 
faith, a heightened experience of the same type 
with the freedom and spontaneity that I experi- 
ence in the presence of those with whom I feel 
most in accord. The further graces and powers of 
religion readily submit to a similar description. 
My sense of positive sympathy expresses itself in an 
attitude of well-wishing; living in an atmosphere 
of kindness I instinctively endeavor to propagate 
it. My buoyancy is distinctly of that quality which 
to a lesser degree is due to any sense of social 
security; my power is that of one who works in 
an environment that reenforces him. I experience 
the objective or even cosmical character of my en- 
terprises. They have a momentum which makes 
me their instrument rather than their perpetrator. 
A paradoxical relation between religion and moral- 
ity has always interested observers of custom and 
history. Religion is apparently as capable of the 
most fiendish malevolence as of the most saintly 
gentleness. Fielding writes that, 



74 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

" When religion is brought out or into daily life and used 
as a guide or a weapon in the world it has no effect either for 
good or evil. Its effect is simply in strengthening the heart, 
in blinding the eyes, in deafening the ears. It is an inten- 
sive force, an intoxicant. It doubles or trebles a man's 
powers. It is an impulsive force sending him headlong 
down the path of emotion, whether that path lead to glory 
or to infamy. It is a tremendous stimulant, that is all." 13 

Religion does not originate life purposes or define 
their meaning, but stimulates them by the same 
means that works in all corporate and social ac- 
tivity. To work with the universe is the most 
tremendous incentive that can appeal to the indi- 
vidual will. Hence in highly ethical religions the 
power for good exceeds that of any other social and 
spiritual agency. Such religion makes present, 
actual, and real, that good on the whole which the 
individual otherwise tends to distinguish from 
that which is good for him. In daily life the mor- 
ally valid and the practically urgent are commonly 
arrayed against one another ; but the ethical relig- 
ion makes the valid urgent. 

§ 24. The instruments of religion are legion, 
and it is in order here only to mention certain 
Religious prominent cases in which their selection 

Instruments, 

Symbolism, would seem to have direct reference to 

and Modes of . „ 

Conveyance, the provocation and perpetuation 01 
13 Fielding: op. cit., p. 152. 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 75 

such a sense of attitude as we have been describing. 
This is true in a general way of all symbolism. 
There is no essential difference between the relig- 
ious symbol and such symbols as serve to remind 
us of human relationships. In both cases the per- 
ceptual absence of will is compensated for by the 
presence of some object associated with that will. 
The function of this object is due to its power to 
revive and perpetuate a certain special social at- 
mosphere. But the most important vehicle of re- 
ligion has always been personality. It is, after all, 
to priests, prophets, and believers that religious 
cults have owed their long life. The traits that 
mark the prophet are both curious and sublime. 
He is most remarkable for the confidence with 
which he speaks for the universe. Whether it be 
due to lack of a sense of humor or to a profound 
conviction of truth, is indifferent to our purpose. 
The power of such men is undoubtedly in their 
suggestion of a force greater than they, whose de- 
signs they bring directly and socially to the atten- 
tion of men. The prophet in his prophesying is 
indeed not altogether distinguished from God, and 
it is through the mediation of a directly percep- 
tible human attitude that a divine attitude gets 
itself fixed in the imagination of the believer. 



76 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

What is true of the prophet is equally true of the 
preacher whose function it is not to represent God 
in his own person, but to depict him with his 
tongue. It is generally recognized that the 
preacher is neither a moralizer nor a theologian. 
But it is less perfectly understood that it is his 
function to suggest the presence of God. His 
proper language is that of the imagination, and 
the picture which he portrays is that of a recipro- 
cal social relationship between man and the Su- 
preme Master of the situation of life. He will not 
define God or prove God, but introduce Him and 
talk about Him. And at the same time the asso- 
ciation of prayer and worship with his sermon, and 
the atmosphere created by the meeting together of 
a body of disciples, will act as the confirmation of 
his suggestions of such a living presence. 

The conveyance of any single religious cult from 
generation to generation affords a signal illustra- 
tion of the importance in religion of the recogni- 
tion of attitude. Religions manage somehow to 
survive any amount of transformation of creed 
and ritual. It is not what is done, or what is 
thought, that identifies the faith of the first Chris- 
tians with that of the last, but a certain reckoning 
with the disposition of God. The successive gen- 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 77 

erations of Christians are introduced into the spirit- 
ual world of their fathers, with its furnishing of 
hopes and fears remaining substantially the same; 
and their Christianity consists in their continuing 
to live in it with only a slight and gradual renova- 
tion. To any given individual God is more or 
less completely represented by his elders in the 
faith in their exhortations and ministerings ; and 
through them he fixes as the centre of his system 
an image of God his accuser or redeemer. 

§ 25. The complete verification of this interpre- 
tation of the religious experience would require the 
Historical application of it to the different histori- 

Types of 

Religion. cal cults. In general the examination 
Religions. of such instances is entirely beyond the 
scope of this chapter ; but a brief consideration 
may be given to those which seem to afford reason- 
able grounds for objection. 

First, it may be said that in primitive religions, 
notably in fetichism, tabooism, and totemism, there 
is no recognition of a cosmical unity. It is quite 
evident that there is no conception of a universe. 
But it is equally evident that the natural and his- 
torical environment in its generality has a very 
specific practical significance for the primitive 
believer. It is often said with truth that these 



78 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

earliest religions are more profoundly pantheistic 
than polytheistic. Man recognizes an all-pervad- 
ing interest that is capable of being directed to 
himself. The selection of a deity is not due to 
any special qualification for deification possessed 
by the individual object itself, but to the tacit pre- 
sumption that, as Thales said, " all things are full 
of gods." The disposition of residual reality mani- 
fests to the believer no consistency or unity, but it 
is nevertheless the most constant object of his will. 
He lives in the midst of a capriciousness which he 
must appease if he is to establish himself at all. 

§ 26. Secondly, in the case of Buddhism we are 
Buddhism. said to meet with a religion that is es- 
sentially atheistic. 

"Whether Buddhas arise, O priests, or whether 
Buddhas do not arise, it remains a fact and the fixed 
and necessary constitution of being, that all its con- 
stituents are transitory." 14 

The secret of life lies in the application of this 

truth : 

" O builder ! I've discovered thee ! 
This fabric thou shalt ne'er rebuild! 
Thy rafters all are broken now, 
And pointed roof demolished lies! 
This mind has demolition reached, 
And seen the last of all desire ! " " 

14 Warren: Buddhism in Translations, p. 14. 

15 Ibid., p. 83. 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 79 

The case of Buddha himself and of the exponents 
of his purely esoteric doctrine, belong to the re- 
flective type which will presently be given special 
consideration. But with the ordinary believer, 
even where an extraneous but almost inevitable 
polytheism is least in evidence, the religious ex- 
perience consists in substantially the same elements 
that appear in theistic religions. The individual 
is here living appropriately to the ultimate nature 
of things, with the ceaseless periods of time in full 
view. That which is brought home to him is the 
illusoriness and hollowness of things when taken 
in the spirit of active endeavor. The only pro- 
found and abiding good is nothingness. While 
nature and society conspire to mock him, Nirvana 
invites him to its peace. The religious course 
of his life consists in the use of such means as 
can win him this end. From the stand-point of 
the universe he has the sympathy only of that 
wisdom whose essence is self-destruction. And 
this truth is mediated by the imagination of 
divine sympathy, for the Blessed One remains 
as the perpetual incarnation of his own blessed- 
ness. 

§ 27. Finally there remains the consideration of 
the bearing of this interpretation upon the more 



80 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

refined and disciplined religions. The religion 
of the critically enlightened man is less naive 
Critical an( ^ credulous in its imagery. God 

Religion. tends to vanish into an ideal or a uni- 
versal, into some object of theoretical defini- 
tion. Here we are on that borderland where an 
assignment of individual cases can never be 
made with any certainty of correctness. We 
can generalize only by describing the conditions 
that such cases must fulfil if they are prop- 
erly to be denominated religious. And there can 
be no question of the justice of deriving such 
a description from the reports of historical and in- 
stitutional religions. An idealistic philosophy 
will, then, be a religion just in so far as it is ren- 
dered practically vivid by the imagination. Such 
imagination must create and sustain a social rela- 
tionship. The question of the legitimacy of this 
imagination is another matter. It raises the issue 
concerning the judgment of truth implied in re- 
ligion, and this is the topic of the next chapter. 
At any rate the religious experience may be real- 
ized by virtue of the metaphorical or poetical rep- 
resentation of a situation as one of intercommuni- 
cation between persons, where reflective definition 
at the same time denies it. The human worshipper 



THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 81 

may supply the personality of God from himself, 
viewing himself as from the divine stand-point. 
But whatever faculty supplies this indispensable 
social quality of religion, he who defines God as 
the ultimate goodness or the ultimate truth, has 
certainly not yet worshipped Him. He begins to 
be religious only when such an ideal determines 
the atmosphere of his daily living; when he regards 
the immanence of such an ideal in nature and his- 
tory as the object of his will ; and when he responds 
to its presence in the spirit of his conduct and his 
contemplation. 



CHAPTEK IV 

THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF RELIGION" 

§ 28. It has been maintained that religion is 
closely analogous to one's belief in the disposition 
Resume of toward one's self of men or communi- 

Psychology 

of Religion, ties. In the case of religion this dispo- 
sition is attributed to the more or less vaguely con- 
ceived residual environment that is recognized as 
lying outside of the more familiar natural and 
social relations. After the rise of science this 
residual environment tends to be conceived as a 
unity which is ultimate or fundamental, but for 
the religious consciousness it is more commonly 
regarded as a general source of influence practically 
worthy of consideration. Such a belief, like all 
belief, is vitally manifested, with such emphasis 
upon action, feeling, or intellection as tempera- 
ment and mood may determine. 

§ 29. But if the psychology of belief is the 
proper starting-point for a description of the re- 
Reiigion ligious experience, it is none the less 

Means to 

be True. suggestive of the fact that religion, just 

82 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 83 

because it is belief, is not wholly a matter for psy- 
chology. For religion means to be true, and thus 
submits itself to valuation as a case of knowledge. 
The psychological study of religion is misleading 
when accepted as a substitute for philosophical 
criticism. The religious man takes his religion 
not as a narcotic, but as an enlightenment. Its 
subjective worth is due at any rate in part to the 
supposition of its objective worth. As in any case 
of insight, that which warms the heart must have 
satisfied the mind. The religious experience pur- 
ports to be the part of wisdom, and to afford only 
such happiness as increasing wisdom would con- 
firm. And the charm of truth cannot survive its 
truthfulness. Hence, though religion may be de- 
scribed, it cannot be justified, from the stand-point 
of therapeutics. Were such the case it would be 
the real problem of religious leaders to find a drug 
capable of giving a constantly pleasant tone to their 
patient's experience. 1 There would be no differ- 
ence between priests and physicians who make a spe- 
cialty of nervous diseases, except that the former 
would aim at a more fundamental and perpetual 

1 As Plato interprets the scepticism of Protagoras to mean 
that one state of mind cannot be more true than another, 
but only better or worse. Cf. Thecetetus, 167. 



84 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

suggestion of serenity. Now no man wants to be 
even a blessed fool. He does not want to dwell 
constantly in a fictitious world, even if it be after 
his own heart. He may from the cynical point of 
view actually do so, but if he be religious he thinks 
it is reality, and is satisfied only in so far as he 
thinks so. He regards the man who has said in 
his heart that there is no God as the fool, and not 
because he may have to suffer for it, but because 
he is cognitively blind to the real nature of things. 
Piety, on the other hand, he regards as the standard 
experience, the most veracious life. Hence, it is 
not an accident that religion has had its creeds and 
its controversies, its wars with science and its ap- 
peals to philosophy. The history of these affairs 
shows that religion commonly fails to understand 
the scope of its own demand for truth; but they 
have issued from the deep conviction that one's 
religion is, implicitly, at least, in the field of truth ; 
that there are theoretical judgments whose truth 
would justify or contradict it. 

This general fact being admitted, there remains 
the task to which the present discussion addresses 
itself, that of defining the kind of theoretical judg- 
ment implied in religion, and the relation to this 
central cognitive stem of its efflorescences of myth, 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 85 

theology, and ritual. It is impossible to separate 
the stem and the efflorescence, or to determine the 
precise spot at which destruction of the tissue 
would prove fatal to the plant, but it is possible to 
obtain some idea of the relative vitality of the 
parts. 

§ 30. The difficulty of reaching a definite state- 
ment in this matter is due to the fact that the truth 
Religion in which any religious experience cen- 

Means to be . i • 1 i , • t> 

Practically tres is a practical and not a scientific 

GoTis a Dis- truth. A practical truth does not com- 
position from mit itgelf t • le sc i ent ifi c state _ 

which Conse- J ° 

quences May men t and can of ten survive the over- 

Rationally 

be Expected, throw of that scientific statement in 
which at any given time it has found expression. 
In other words, an indefinite number of scientific 
truths are compatible with a single practical truth. 
An instance of this is the consistency with my ex- 
pectation of the alternation of day and night, of 
either the Ptolemaic or Copernican formulation of 
the solar system. Now expectation that the sun 
will rise to-morrow is an excellent analogue of my 
religious belief. Celestial mechanics is as relevant 
to the one as metaphysics to the other. Neither is 
overthrown until a central practical judgment is 
discredited, and either could remain true through 



86 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

a very considerable alteration of logical definition ; 
but neither is on this account exempt from theoreti- 
cal responsibility. In so far as religion deliber- 
ately enters the field of science, and defines its 
formularies with the historical or metaphysical 
method, this difficulty does not, of course, exist. 
Grant that the years of Methuselah's life, or the pre- 
cise place and manner of the temptation of Jesus, 
or the definition of Christ in the terms of the 
Athanasian Creed, are constitutive of Christianity, 
and the survival of that religion will be determined 
by the solution of ordinary problems of historical 
or metaphysical research. But the Christian will 
very properly claim that his religion is only exter- 
nally and accidentally related to such propositions, 
since they are never or very rarely intended in his 
experience. As religious he is occupied with 
Christ as his saviour or with God as his protector 
and judge. The history of Jesus or the meta- 
physics of God essentially concern him only in so 
far as they may or may not invalidate this relation- 
ship. He cares only for the power and disposition 
of the divine, and these are affected by history and 
metaphysics only in so far as he has definitely put 
them to such proof. 

For my religion is my sense of a practical situa- 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 87 

tion, and only when that has been proved to be 
folly has my religion become untrue. My God is 
my practical faith, my plan of salvation. My re- 
ligion is overthrown if I am convinced that I have 
misconceived the situation and mistaken what I 
should do to be saved. The conception of God is 
very simple practically, and very complex theo- 
retically, a fact that confirms its practical genesis. 
My conception of God contains an idea of my own 
interests, an idea of the disposition of the universe 
toward my interests, and some working plan for 
the reconciliation of these two terms. These three 
elements form a practical unity, but each is capable 
of emphasis, and a religion may be transformed 
through the modification of any one of them. It 
appears, then, as has always been somewhat vaguely 
recognized, that the truth of religion is ethical 
as well as metaphysical or scientific. My religion 
will be altered by a change in my conception of 
what constitutes my real interest, a change in my 
conception of the fundamental causes of reality, 
or a change in my conception of the manner in 
which my will may or may not affect these causes. 
God is neither an entity nor an ideal, but always 
a relation of entity to ideal : reality regarded from 
the stand-point of its favorableness or unfavorable- 



88 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ness to human life, and prescribing for the latter 
the propriety of a certain attitude. 

§31. The range of historical examples is limit- 
Historical less, but certain of these are especially 

Examples of . . 

Religious calculated to emphasize the application 

Truth and » . . . . . , . , 

Error. oi a criterion to religion, buch is the 

of Baal gl< l case with Elijah's encounter with the 
prophets of Baal, as narrated in the Old Testa- 
ment. 

"And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, 
How long halt ye between two opinions? If Yahweh 
be God, follow him : but if Baal, then follow him. . . . 
And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on 
the name of Yahweh: and the God that answereth by 
fire, let him be God. . . . And Elijah said unto the 
prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, 
and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name 
of your god, but put no fire under. And they took the 
bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and 
called on the name of Baal from morning even until 
noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, 
nor any that answered. . . . And it came to pass 
at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: 
for he is a god; either he is musing, or he is gone aside, 
or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and 
must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut them- 
selves after their manner with knives and lances, till the 
blood gushed out upon them. . . . But there was 
neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded." 2 

2 Quoted with some omissions from / Kings, 18:21-29. 
The Hebrew term Yahweh, the name of the national deity, 
has been substituted for the English translation, "the Lord." 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 89 

The religion of the followers of Baal here con- 
sists in a belief in the practical virtue of a mode 
of address and form of ritual associated with the 
traditions and customs of a certain social group. 
The prophets of this cult agree to regard the ex- 
periment proposed by Elijah as a crucial test, and 
that which is disproved from its failure is a plan 
of action. These prophets relied upon the pres- 
ence of a certain motivity, from which a defi- 
nite response could be evoked by an appeal which 
they were peculiarly able to make ; but though 
" they prophesied until the time of the offering 
of the evening oblation," there was none that 
regarded. 

§ 32. An equally familiar and more instructive 
example is the refutation of the Greek national 
Greek religion by Lucretius. The conception 

Religion. £ j-£ e which Lucretius finds unwar- 
ranted is best depicted in Homer. There we hear 
of a society composed of gods and men. Though 
the gods, on the one hand, have their own history, 
their affairs are never sharply sundered from those 
of men, who, on the other hand, must constantly 
reckon with them, gauge their attitude, and seek 
their favor by paying tribute to their individual 
humors and preferences. In the Ninth Book of 



90 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the " Iliad/' Phcenix addresses himself to the re- 
calcitrant Achilles as follows : 

"It fits not one that moves 
The hearts of all, to live unmov'd, and succor hates for 

loves. 
The Gods themselves are flexible; whose virtues, honors, 

pow'rs, 
Are more than thine, yet they will bend their breasts as 

we bend ours. 
Perfumes, benign devotions, savors of offerings burn'd, 
And holy rites, the engines are with which their hearts 

are turn'd, 
By men that pray to them." s 

Here is a general recognition of that which 
makes sacrifice rational. It is because he conceives 
this presupposition to be mistaken, that Lucretius 
declares the practices and fears which are founded 
upon it to be folly. It is the same with all that is 
practically based upon the expectation of a life 
beyond the grave. The correction of the popular 
religion is due in his opinion to that true view of 
the world taught by Epicurus, whose memory 
Lucretius thus invokes at the opening of the Third 
Book of the " De Eerum Natura " : 

"Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness 
to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on 
the true interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek 
race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy 
imprinted marks. . . . For soon as thy philosophy 

3 Iliad, Book IX, lines 467 sq. Translation by Chapman. 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 91 

issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud 
voice to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the 
mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, 
I see things in operation throughout the whole void: the 
divinity of the gods is revealed and their tranquil abodes 
which neither winds do shake nor clouds drench with 
rains nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with 
hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, 
and they laugh with light shed largely round. Nature 
too supplies all their wants and nothing ever impairs 
their peace of mind. But on the other hand the Acheru- 
sian quarters 4 are nowhere to be seen, though earth is 
no bar to all things being descried, which are in opera- 
tion underneath our feet throughout the void." 5 

In another passage, after describing the Phry- 
gian worship of Cybele, he comments as follows: 

" All which, well and beautifully as it is set forth and 
told, is yet widely removed from true reason. For the 
nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy 
immortality together with supreme repose, far removed 
and withdrawn from our concerns; since exempt from 
every pain, exempt from all dangers, strong in its own 
resources, not wanting aught of us, it is neither gained 
by favors nor moved by anger. . . . The earth 
however is at all time without feeling, and because it 
receives into it the first-beginnings of many things, it 
brings them forth in many ways into the light of the 
sun." 6 

If the teaching of Epicurus be true it is evident 

4 The supposed abode of departed spirits. 

5 Lucretius: De Return Natura, Book III, lines 1 sq. Trans- 
lated by Munro. 

8 Ibid., Book II, lines 644 sq. 



92 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

that those who offered hecatombs with the idea that 
they were thereby mitigating anger, or securing 
special dispensation, were playing the fool. They 
were appealing to a fictitious motivity, one not 
grounded in " the nature of things." To one for 
whom the walls of the world had parted asunder, 
such a procedure was no longer possible; though 
he might choose to " call the sea Neptune " and 
reverence the earth as " mother of the gods." 7 

§ 33. The history of religion contains no more 
impressive and dramatic chapter than that which 
Tudaism and recor d s the development of the religion 
Christianity. £ ^ Q j ewSt Passing over its obscure 

beginnings in the primitive Semitic cult, we find 
this religion first clearly defined as tribal self- 
interest sanctioned by Yahweh. 8 God's interest 

7 It would be interesting to compare the equally famous 
criticism of Greek religion in Plato's Republic, Book II, 
377 sq. 

8 Cf. W. Robertson Smith's admirable account of the 
Semitic religions: 

"What is requisite to religion is a practical acquaintance 
with the rules on which the deity acts and on which he ex- 
pects his worshippers to frame their conduct — what in 
II Kings, 17:26 is called the 'manner,' or rather the 
'customary law' (mishpat), of the god of the land. This 
is true even of the religion of Israel. When the prophets 
speak of the knowledge of God, they always mean a practical 
knowledge of the laws and principles of His government in 
Israel, and a summary expression for religion as a whole is 
'the knowledge and fear of Jehovah,' i. e., the knowledge 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 93 

in his chosen people determines the prosperity of 
him who practises the social virtues. 

" The name of Yahweh is a strong tower : the righteous 
runneth into it, and is safe." 

" He that is steadfast in righteousness shall attain 
unto life." 

"To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to 
Yahweh than sacrifice." 9 

But in time it is evident to the believer that 
his experience does not bear out this expectation. 
Neither as a Jew nor as a righteous man does he 
prosper more than his neighbor. He comes, there- 
fore, to distrust the virtue of his wisdom. 

"Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as 
light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in 
his head, and the fool walketh in darkness: and yet I 
perceived that one event happeneth to them all. Then 
said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so will it 
happen even to me; and why was I then more wise? 
Then I said in my heart, that this also was vanity. For 
of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remem- 
brance forever; seeing that in the days to come all will 
have been already forgotten. And how doth the wise 
man die even as the fool! So I hated life; because the 
work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto 
me: for all is vanity and a striving after wind." 10 

It is evident that he who expects the favor of for- 

of what Jehovah prescribes, combined with a reverent obe- 
dience." The Religion of the Semites, p. 23. 

9 Proverbs, 18: 10; 11 : 19; 21:3. 

10 Ecclesiastes, 2:13 sq. 



94 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tune in return for his observance of precept is mis- 
taken. The " work that is wrought under the 
sun " makes no special provision for him during 
his lifetime. Unless the cry of vanity is to he the 
last word there must be a reinterpretation of the 
promise of God. This appears in the new ideal 
of patient submission, and the chastened faith that 
expects only the love of God. And those whom 
God loves He will not forsake. They will come to 
their own, if not here, then beyond, according to 
His inscrutable but unswerving plan. 

" The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken 
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." 

" For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth 
eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and 
holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble 
spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive 
the heart of the contrite ones." 11 

In this faith Judaism merges into Christian- 
ity. 12 In the whole course of this evolution God 
^ is regarded as the friend of his people, but his 
people learn to find a new significance in his 
friendship. That which is altered is the conduct 
which that friendship requires and the expecta- 

11 Psalms, 51:17; Isaiah, 57:15. 

12 In this discussion of Judaism I am much indebted to 
Matthew Arnold's Literature and Dogma, especially Chap- 
ters I and II. 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 95 

tion which it determines. The practical ideal 
which the relationship sanctions, changes gradually 
from that of prudence to that of goodness for its 
own sake. God, once an instrument relevant to 
human temporal welfare, has come to be an object 
of disinterested service. 

No such transformation as this was absolutely 
realized during the period covered by the writings 
of the Old Testament, nor has it even yet been 
realized in the development of Christianity. But 
the evolution of both Judaism and Christianity 
has taken this direction. The criterion of this 
evolution is manifestly both ethical and metaphys- 
ical. A Christian avows that he rates purity of 
character above worldly prosperity, so that the 
former cannot properly be prized for the sake 
of the latter. Furthermore, he shares more or 
less unconsciously such philosophical and scien- 
tific opinions as deny truth to the conception of 
special interferences and dispensations from a su- 
pernatural agency. Therefore he looks for no fire 
from heaven to consume his sacrifice. But his 
religion is nevertheless a practical expectation. 
He believes that God is good, and that God loves 
him and sustains him. He believes that there 
obtains between himself, in so far as good, and the 



96 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

universe sub specie eternitatis, a real sympathy and 
reciprocal reenforcement. He believes that he 
secures through the profoundly potent forces of 
the universe that which he regards as of most worth ; 
and that somewhat is added to these forces by vir- 
tue of his consecration. The God of the Christians 
cannot be denned short of some such account as 
this, inclusive of an ideal, an attitude, and an ex- 
pectation. In other words the God of the Chris- 
tians is to be known only in terms of the Christ- 
like outlook upon life, in which the disciple is 
taught to emulate the master. When moral and 
intellectual development shall have discredited 
either its scale of values, or its conviction that 
cosmical events are in the end determined in ac- 
cordance with that scale of values, then Christian- 
ity must either be transformed, or be untenable for 
the wise man. If we have conceived the essence 
of Christianity too broadly or vaguely, it does not 
much matter for our present purposes. Its es- 
sence is, at any rate, some such inwardness of life 
resolving ideality and reality into one, and draw- 
ing upon objective truth only to the extent required 
for the confirming of that relation. 

§ 34. We conclude, then, our attempt to empha- 
size the cognitive factor in religion, with the thesis 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 97 

The Cognitive that every religion centres in a practical 

Factor in 

Religion. secret of the universe. To be religious 
is to believe that a certain correlation of forces,, 
moral and factual, is in reality operative, and that 
it determines the propriety and effectiveness of 
a certain type of living. Whatever demonstrates 
the futility, vanity, or self-deception of this living, 
discredits the religion., And, per contra, except as 
they define or refute such practical truth, religion 
is not essentially concerned with theoretical judg- 
ments. 

§35. But neither religion nor any other human 
interest consists in essentials. Such a practical 
The Place of conviction as that which has been de- 

Imagination . 

in Religion, fined inevitably flowers into a marvel- 
ous complexity, and taps for its nourishment every 
spontaneity of human nature. If it be said that 
only the practical conviction is essential, this 
is not the same as to say that all else is super- 
fluous. There may be no single utterance that my 
religion could not have spared, and yet were I to 
be altogether dumb my religion would, indeed, 
be as nothing. For if I believe, I accept a pres- 
ence in my world, which as I live will figure in 
my dreams, or in my thoughts, or in my habits. 



98 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

And each of these expressions of myself will have 
a truth if it do but bear out my practical accept- 
ance of that presence. The language of religion, 
like that of daily life, is not the language of sci- 
ence except it take it upon itself to be so. There 
is scarcely a sentence which I utter in my daily 
intercourse with men which is not guilty of trans- 
gressions against the canons of accurate and defi- 
nite thinking. Yet if I deceive neither myself nor 
another, I am held to be truthful, even though my 
language deal with chance and accident, material 
purposes and spiritual causes, and though I vow 
that the sun smiles or the moon lets down her hair 
into the sea. Science is a special interest in the 
discovery of unequivocal and fixed conceptions, and 
employs its terms with an unalterable connotation. 
But no such algebra of thought is indispensable 
to life or conversation, and its lack is no proof of 
error. Such is the case also with that eminently 
living affair, religion. I may if I choose, and I 
will if my reasoning powers be at all awakened, 
be a theologian. But theology, like science, is a 
special intellectual spontaneity. St. Thomas, the 
master theologian, did not glide unwittingly from 
prayer into the qucestiones of the " Summa Theo- 
logian," but turned to them as to a fresh adventure. 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 99 

Theology is inevitable, because humanly speaking 
adventure is inevitable. For man, with his intel- 
lectual spontaneity, every object is a problem ; and 
did he not seek sooner or later to define salvation, 
there would be good reason to believe that he did 
not practically reckon with any. But this is simi- 
larly and independently true of the imagination, 
the most familiar means with which man clothes 
and vivifies his convictions, the exuberance with 
which he plays about them and delights to confess 
them. The imagination of religion, contributing 
what Matthew Arnold called its " poetry and elo- 
quence," does not submit itself to such canons as 
are binding upon theology or science, but exists 
and flourishes in its own right. 

The indispensableness to religion of the imagina- 
tion is due to that faculty's power of realizing what 
is not perceptually present. Religion is not inter- 
ested in the apparent, but in the secret essence or 
the transcendent universal. And yet this interest 
is a practical one. Imagination may introduce 
one into the vivid presence of the secret or the 
transcendent. It is evident that the religious im- 
agination here coincides with poetry. For it is 
at least one of the interests of poetry to cultivate 
and satisfy a sense for the universal; to obtain an 

LofC. 



100 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

immediate experience or appreciation that shall 
have the vividness without the particularism of 
ordinary perception. And where a poet elects so 
to view the world, we allow him as a poet the 
privilege, and judge him by the standards to which 
he submits himself. That upon which we pass 
judgment is the fitness of his expression. This 
expression is not, except in the case of the theo- 
retical mystic, regarded as constituting the most 
valid form of the idea, but is appreciated expressly 
for its fulfilment of the condition of immediacy. 
The same sort of critical attitude is in order with 
the fruits of the religious imagination. These 
may or may not fulfil enough of the require- 
ments of that art to be properly denominated 
poetry ; but like poetry they are the translation of 
ideas into a specific language. They must not, 
therefore, be judged as though they claimed to 
excel in point of validity, but only in point of con- 
sistency with the context of that language. And 
the language of religion is the language of the 
'practical life. Such translation is as essential to 
an idea that is to enter into the religious experi- 
ence, as translation into terms of immediacy is 
essential to an idea that is to enter into the appre- 
ciative consciousness of the poet. No object can 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 101 

find a place in my religion until it is conjoined 
with my purposes and hopes ; until it is taken for 
granted and acted upon, like the love of my friends, 
or the courses of the stars, or the stretches of 
the sea. 

§ 36. The religious imagination, then, is to be 
understood and justified as that which brings the 
The Special objects of religion within the range of 
t F hTRe ii n g"o°us livin g- The central religious object, as 

Imagination. hag been gee ^ j g &n a ft^g Q f t ^ e re _ 

siduum or totality of things. To be religious one 
must have a sense for the presence of an attitude, 
like his sense for the presence of his human fel- 
lows, with all the added appreciation that is proper 
in the case of an object that is unique in its mys- 
tery or in its majesty. It follows that the religious 
imagination fulfils its function in so far as it pro- 
vides the object of religion with properties similar 
to those which lend vividness and reality to the 
normal social relations. 

The presence of one's fellows is in part the per- 
ceptual experience of their bodies. To this there 
corresponds in religion some extraordinary or sub- 
tle appearance. The gods may in visions or 
dreams be met with in their own proper embodi- 
ments; or, as is more common, they may be re- 



102 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

garded as present for practical purposes: in some 
inanimate object, as in the case of the fetish ; in 
some animal species, as in the case of the totem; 
in some place, as in the case of the shrine ; or even 
in some human being, as in the case of the inspired 
prophet and miracle worker. In more refined and 
highly developed religions the medium of God's 
presence is less specific. He is perceived with 

" — a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man." 

God is here found in an interpretation of the com- 
mon and the natural, rather than in any individual 
and peculiar embodiment. And here the poet's 
appreciation, if not his art, is peculiarly indis- 
pensable. 

But, furthermore, his fellows are inmates of 
" the household of man " in that he knows their 
history. They belong to the temporal context of 
actions and events. Similarly, the gods must be 
historical. The sacred traditions or books of re- 
ligion are largely occupied with this history. The 
more individual and anthropomorphic the gods, 
the more local and episodic will be the account of 
their affairs. In the higher religions the acts of 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 103 

God are few and momentous, such as creation or 
special providence; or they are identical with the 
events of nature and human history when these 
are construed as divine. To find God in this lat- 
ter way requires an interpretation of the course 
of events in terms of some moral consistency, a 
faith that sees some purpose in their evident des- 
tination. 

There is still another and a more significant 
way in which men recognize one another : the way 
of address and conversation. And men have in- 
variably held a similar intercourse with their gods. 
To this category belong communion and prayer, 
with all their varieties of expression. I have no 
god until I address him. This will be the most 
direct evidence of what is at least from my point 
of view a social relation. There can be no general 
definition of the form which this address will take. 
There may be as many special languages, as many 
attitudes, and as much playfulness and subtlety 
of symbolism as in human intercourse. ' But, on 
the other hand, there are certain utterances that 
are peculiarly appropriate to religion. In so far 
as he regards his object as endowed with both 
power and goodness the worshipper will use the lan- 
guage of adoration; and the sense of his depend- 



104 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ence will speak in terms of consecration and 
thanksgiving. 

"O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: 
My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, 
In a dry and weary land, where no water is. 
So have I looked upon thee in the sanctuary, 
To see thy power and thy glory. 
For thy loving-kindness is better than life; 
My lips shall praise thee." 

These are expressions of a hopeful faith; but, 
on the other hand, God may be addressed in terms 
of hatred and distrust. 

" Who is most wretched in this dolorous place? 
I think myself; yet I would rather be 
My miserable self than He, than He 
Who formed such creatures to his own disgrace. 

" The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou 
From whom it had its being, God and Lord! 
Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred, 
Malignant and implacable." 13 

In either case there may be an indefinite degree 
of hyperbole. The language of love and hate, of 
confidence and despair, is not the language of de- 
scription. In this train of the religious conscious- 
ness there is occasion for whatever eloquence man 
can feel, and whatever rhetorical luxuriance he 
can utter. 

13 James Thomson: The City of Dreadful Night. Quoted 
by James, in The Will to Believe, etc., p. 45. 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 105 

§ 37. Such considerations as these serve to ac- 
count for the exercise and certain of the fruits of 
The Relation the religious imagination, and to des- 

between 

imagination ignate the general criterion governing 

and Truth in . 

Religion. its propriety. But how is one to deter- 
mine the boundary between the imaginative and 
the cognitive? It is commonly agreed that what 
religion says and does is not all intended literally. 
But when is expression of religion only poetry and 
eloquence, and when is it matter of conviction? 
If we revert again to the cognitive aspect of re- 
ligion, it is evident that there is but one test to 
apply : whatever either fortifies or misleads the will 
is literal conviction. This test cannot be applied 
absolutely, because it can properly be applied only 
to the intention of an individual experience. 
However I may express my religion, that which I 
express, is, we have seen, an expectation. The 
degree to which I literally mean what I say is 
then the degree to which it determines my expec- 
tations. Whatever adds no item to these expecta- 
tions, but only recognizes and vitalizes them, is 
pure imagination. But it follows that it is en- 
tirely impossible from direct inspection to define 
any given expression of religious experience as 
myth, or to define the degree to which it is myth. 



106 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

It submits to such distinctions only when viewed 
from the stand-point of the concrete religions ex- 
perience which it expresses. Any such given ex- 
pression could easily be all imagination to one, 
and all conviction to another. Consider the pas- 
sage which follows : 

"And I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white 
horse, and he that sat thereon, called Faithful and True; 
and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And 
his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many 
diadems; and he hath a name written, which no one 
knoweth but he himself. And he is arrayed in a garment 
sprinkled with blood : and his name is called The Word 
of God." 14 

Is this all rhapsody, or is it in part true report? 
There is evidently no answer to the question so 
conceived. But if it were to express my own re- 
ligious feeling it would have some specific propor- 
tion of literal and metaphorical significance, ac- 
cording to the degree to which its detail contributes 
different practical values to me. It might then be 
my guide-book to the heavens, or only my testimony 
to the dignity and mystery of the function of 
Christ. 

The development of religion bears in a very im- 
portant way upon this last problem. The factor 

14 Revelation, 19 : 11-13. 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 107 

of imagination has undoubtedly come to have a 
more clearly recognized role in religion. There 
can be no doubt that what we now call myths were 
once beliefs, and that what we now call poetry was 
once history. If we go back sufficiently far we 
come to a time when the literal and the meta- 
phorical were scarcely distinguishable, and this 
because science had not emerged from the early 
animistic extension of social relations. Men 
meant to address their gods as they addressed their 
fellows, and expected them to hear and respond, as 
they looked for such reactions within the narrower 
circle of ordinary intercourse. The advance of 
science has brought into vogue a description of 
nature that inhibits such expectations. The re- 
sult has been that men, continuing to use the same 
terms, essentially expressive as they are of a prac- 
tical relationship, have come to regard them as 
only a general expression of their attitude. The 
differences of content that are in excess of factora 
of expectation remain as poetry and myth. On 
the other hand, it is equally possible, if not equally 
common, for that which was once imagined to 
come to be believed. Such a transformation is, 
perhaps, normally the case when the inspired utter- 
ance passes from its author to the cult. The 



108 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

prophets and sweet singers are likely to possess an 
exuberance of imagination not appreciated by their 
followers ; and for this reason almost certainly 
misunderstood. For these reasons it is manifestly 
absurd to fasten the name of myth or the name of 
creed upon any religious utterance whatsoever, 
unless it be so regarded from the stand-point of the 
personal religion which it originally expressed, or 
unless one means by so doing to define it as an 
expression of his own religion. He who defines 
" the myth of creation," or " the poetical story of 
Samson," as parts of the pre-Christian Judaic re- 
ligion, exhibits a total loss of historical sense. The 
distinction between cognition and fancy does not 
exist among objects, but only in the intending ex- 
perience ; hence, for me to attach my own distinc- 
tion to any individual case of belief, viewed apart 
from the believer, is an utterly confusing projec- 
tion of my own personality into the field of my 
study. 

§ 38. Only after such considerations as these 
are we qualified to attack that much-vexed question 
The Phiioso- as to whether religion deals invariably 

phy Implied . 

in Religion with a personal god. It is often as- 

an d in , . , 

Religions. sumed in discussion of this question 
that " personal god," as well as " god," is a dis- 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 109 

tinct and familiar kind of entity, like a dragon or 
centaur; its existence alone being problematical. 
This is doubly false to the religious employment 
of such an object. If it be true that in religion 
we mean by God a practical interpretation of the 
world, whatsoever be its nature, then the personal- 
ity of God must be a derivative of the attitude, and 
not of the nature of the world. Given the prac- 
tical outlook upon life, there is no definable world 
that cannot be construed under the form of God. 
My god is my world practically recognized in re- 
spect of its fundamental or ultimate attitude to my 
ideals. In the sense, then, conveyed by this term 
attitude my god will invariably possess the char- 
acters of personality. But the degree to which 
these characters will coincide with the characters 
which I assign to human persons, or the terms of 
any logical conception of personality, cannot be 
absolutely defined. Anthropomorphisms may be 
imagination or they may be literal conviction. 
This will depend, as above maintained, upon the 
degree to which they determine my expectations. 
Suppose the world to be theoretically conceived as 
governed by laws that are indifferent to all human 
interests. The practical expression of this concep- 
tion appears in the naturalism of Lucretius, or 



HO THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Diogenes, or Omar Khayyam. Living in the 
vivid presence of an indifferent world, I may pict- 
ure my gods as leading their own lives in some 
remote reahn which is inaccessible to my petitions, 
or as regarding me with sinister and contemptuous 
cruelty. In the latter case I may shrink and 
cower, or return them contempt for contempt. I 
mean this literally only if I look for consequences 
following directly from the emotional coloring 
which I have bestowed upon them. It may well 
be that I mean merely to regard myself sub specie 
eternitatis, in which case I am personifying in the 
sense of free imagination. In the religion of en- 
lightenment the divine attitude tends to belong to 
the poetry and eloquence of religion rather than to 
its cognitive intent. This is true even of optimistic 
and idealistic religion. The love and providence 
of God are less commonly supposed to warrant an 
expectation of special and arbitrary favors, and 
have come more and more to mean the play of my 
own feeling about the general central conviction 
of the f avorableness of the cosmos to my deeper or 
moral concerns. But the factor of personality can- 
not possibly be entirely eliminated, for the religious 
consciousness creates a social relationship between 
man and the universe. Such an interpretation of 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 11 1 

life is not a case of the pathetic fallacy, unless it 
incorrectly reckons with the inner feeling which it 
attributes to the universe. It is an obvious prac- 
tical truth that the total or residual environment 
is significant for life. . Grant this and you make 
rational a recognition of that significance, or a 
more or less constant sense of coincidence or con- 
flict with cosmical forces. Permit this conscious- 
ness to stand, and you make some expression of it 
inevitable. Such an expression may, furthermore, 
with perfect propriety and in fulfilment of human 
nature, set forth and transfigure this central belief 
until it may enter into the context of immediacy. 
Thus any conception of the universe whatso- 
ever may afford a basis for religion. But there is 
no religion that does not virtually make a more 
definite claim upon the nature of things, and this 
entirely independently of its theology, or explicit 
attempt to define itself. Every religion, even in 
the very living of it, is naturalistic, or dualistic, 
or pluralistic, or optimistic, or idealistic, or pessi- 
mistic. And there is in the realm of truth that 
which justifies or refutes these definite practical 
ways of construing the universe. But no historical 
religion is ever so vague even as this in its phil- 
osophical implications. Indeed, we shall always 






112 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

be brought eventually to the inner meaning of some 
individual religious experience, where no general 
criticism can be certainly valid. 

There is, then, a place in religion for that which 
is not directly answerable to philosophical or sci- 
entific standards. But there is always, on the 
other hand, an element of hope which conceives 
the nature of the world, and means to be grounded 
in reality. In respect of that element, philosophy 
is indispensable to religion. The meaning of re- 
ligion is, in fact, the central problem of philosophy. 
There is a virtue in religion like that which Emer- 
son ascribes to poetry. " The poet is in the right 
attitude; he is believing; the philosopher, after 
some struggle, having only reasons for believing." 
But whatever may be said to the disparagement 
of its dialectic, philosophy is the justification of 
religion, and the criticism of religions. To it 
must be assigned the task of so refining positive 
religion as to contribute to the perpetual establish- 
ment of true religion. And to philosophy, with 
religion, belongs the task of holding fast to the 
idea of the universe. There is no religion except 
before you begin, or after you have rested from, 
your philosophical speculation. But in the uni- 
verse these interests have a common object. As 



RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY H3 

philosophy is the articulation and vindication of 
religion, so is religion the realization of philoso- 
phy. In philosophy thought is brought up to the 
elevation of life, and in religion philosophy, as the 
sum of wisdom, enters into life. 



CHAPTER V 

NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 

§ 39. In the case of natural science we meet 
not only with a special human interest, but with a 
The True theoretical discipline. We are con- 

Relations of 

Philosophy fronted, therefore, with a new question : 

and Science. 

Misconcep- that of the relation within the body of 

tions and An- . . . 1 . „ . 

tagonisms. human knowledge 01 two of its con- 
stituent members. Owing to the militant temper 
of the representatives of both science and philos- 
ophy, this has long since ceased to be an academic 
question, and has frequently been met in the spirit 
of rivalry and partisanship. But the true order 
of knowledge is only temporarily distorted by the 
brilliant success of a special type of investigation ; 
and the conquests of science are now so old a story 
that critical thought shows a disposition to judge 
of the issue with sobriety and logical highminded- 
ness. 

In the seventeenth century a newly emancipated 
and too sanguine reason proposed to know the 
whole of nature at once in terms of mathematics 
114 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY H5 

and mechanics. Thus the system of the English- 
man Hobbes was science swelled to world-propor- 
tions, simple, compact, conclusive, and all-compre- 
hensive. Philosophy proposed to do the work of 
science, but in its own grand manner. The last 
twenty years of Hobbes's life, spent in repeated 
discomfiture at the hands of Seth Ward, Wallis, 
Boyle, and other scientific experts of the new 
Royal Society, certified conclusively to the failure 
of this enterprise, and the experimental specialist 
thereupon took exclusive possession of the field of 
natural law. But the idealist, on the other hand, 
reconstructed nature to meet the demands of phil- 
osophical knowledge and religious faith. There 
issued, together with little mutual understanding 
and less sympathy, on the one hand positivism, or 
exclusive experimentalism, and on the other hand 
a rabid and unsympathetic transcendentalism. 
Hume, who consigned to the flames all thought 
save " abstract reasoning concerning quantity or 
number," and " experimental reasoning concern- 
ing matter of fact and existence " ; Comte, who 
assigned metaphysics to an immature stage in the 
development of human intelligence ; and Tyndall, 
who reduced the religious consciousness to an emo- 
tional experience of mystery, are typical of the one 



116 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

attitude. The other is well exhibited in Schill- 
ing's reference to " the blind and thoughtless mode 
of investigating nature which has become generally 
established since the corruption of philosophy by 
Bacon, and of physics by Boyle." Dogmatic ex- 
perimentalism and dogmatic idealism signify more 
or less consistently the abstract isolation of the 
scientific and philosophical motives. 

There is already a touch of quaintness in both 
of these attitudes. We of the present are in the 
habit of acknowledging the autonomy of science, 
and the unimpeachable validity of the results of 
experimental research in so far as they are sanc- 
tioned by the consensus of experts. But at the 
same time we recognize the definiteness of the task 
of science, and the validity of such reservations as 
may be made from a higher critical point of view. 
Science is to be transcended in so far as it is under- 
stood as a whole. Philosophy is critically empiri- 
cal ; empirical, because it regards all bona fide de- 
scriptions of experience as knowledge ; critical, 
because attentive to the conditions of both general 
and special knowledge. And in terms of a critical 
empiricism so defined, it is one of the problems 
of philosophy to define and appraise the generating 
problem of science, and so to determine the value 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 117 

assignable to natural laws in the whole system of 
knowledge. 

§ 40. If this be the true function of philosophy 
with reference to science, several current notions 
The spheres of of the relations of the spheres of these 

Philosophy 

and Science, disciplines may be disproved. In the 
first place, philosophy will not be all the sciences 
regarded as one science. Science tends to unify 
without any higher criticism. The various sci- 
ences already regard the one nature as their com- 
mon object, and the one system of interdependent 
laws as their common achievement. The philoso- 
pher who tries to be all science at once fails igno- 
miniously because he tries to replace the work of 
a specialist with the work of a dilettante; and if 
philosophy be identical with that body of truth 
accumulated and organized by the cooperative ac- 
tivity of scientific men, then philosophy is a name 
and there is no occasion for the existence of the 
philosopher as such. Secondly, philosophy will 
not be the assembling of the sciences; for such 
would be a merely clerical work, and the philoso- 
pher would much better be regarded as non-existent 
than as a book-keeper. Nor, thirdly, is philosophy 
an auxiliary discipline that may be called upon in 
emergencies for the solution of some baffling prob- 



118 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

lem of science. A problem defined by science 
must be solved in the scientific manner. Science 
will accept no aid from the gods when engaged in 
her own campaign, but will fight it out according 
to her own principles of warfare. And as long 
as science moves in her own plane, she can acknowl- 
edge no permanent barriers. There is then no need 
of any superscientific research that shall replace, 
or piece together, or extend the work of science. 
But the savant is not on this account in possession 
of the entire field of knowledge. It is true that 
he is not infrequently moved to such a conviction 
when he takes us about to view his estates. 
Together we ascend up into heaven, or make our 
beds in sheol, or take the wings of the morning 
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea — and 
look in vain for anything that is not work done, 
or work projected, by natural science. Persuade 
him, however, to define his estates, and he has cir- 
cumscribed them. In his definition he must em- 
ploy conceptions more fundamental than the work- 
ing conceptions that he employs within his field 
of study. Indeed, in viewing his task as definite 
and specific he has undertaken the solution of the 
problem of philosophy. The logical self -conscious- 
ness has been awakened, and there is no honorable 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 119 

way of putting it to sleep again. This is precisely 
what takes place in any account of the generating 
problem of science. To define science is to define 
at least one realm that is other than science, the 
realm of active intellectual endeavor with its own 
proper categories. One cannot reflect upon sci- 
ence and assign it an end, and a method proper 
to that end, without bringing into the field of 
knowledge a broader field of experience than the 
field proper to science, broader at any rate by the 
presence in it of the scientific activity itself. 

Here, then, is the field proper to philosophy. 
The scientist qua scientist is intent upon his own 
determinate enterprise. The philosopher comes 
into being as one who is interested in observing 
what it is that the scientist is so intently doing. 
In taking this interest he has accepted as a field 
for investigation that which he would designate 
as the totality of interests or the inclusive experi- 
ence. He can carry out his intention of defining 
the scientific attitude only by standing outside it, 
and determining it by means of nothing less than 
an exhaustive searching out of all attitudes. Phi- 
losophy is, to be sure, itself a definite activity and 
an attitude, but an attitude required by definition 
to be conscious of itself, and, if you please, con- 



120 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

scious of its own consciousness, until its attitude 
shall have embraced in its object the very prin- 
ciple of attitudes. Philosophy defines itself and 
all other human tasks and interests. None have 
furnished a clearer justification of philosophy than 
those men of scientific predilections who have 
claimed the title of agnostics. A good instance is 
furnished by a contemporary physicist, who has 
chosen to call his reflections " antimetaphysical." 

" Physical science does not pretend to be a complete 
view of the world; it simply claims that it is working 
toward such a complete view in the future. The highest 
philosophy of the scientific investigator is precisely this 
toleration of an incomplete conception of the world and 
the preference for it, rather than an apparently perfect, 
but inadequate conception." 1 

It is apparent that if one were to challenge 
such a statement, the issue raised would at once 
be philosophical and not scientific. The problem 
here stated and answered, requires for its solu- 
tion the widest inclusiveness of view, and a pe- 
culiar interest in critical reflection and logical 
coordination. 

§ 41. One may be prepared for a knowledge of 

1 Ernst Mach : Science of Mechanics. Translation by McCor- 
mack, p. 464. No one has made more important contribu- 
tions than Professor Mach to a certain definite modern 
philosophical movement. Cf. § 207. 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 121 

the economic and social significance of the railway 
The Procedure even if one does not know a throttle 

of a Philoso- 
phy of science, f rom a piston-rod, provided one has 

broad and well-balanced knowledge of the inter- 
play of human social interests. One's proficiency 
here requires one to stand off from society, and to 
obtain a perspective that shall be as little distorted 
as possible. The reflection of the philosopher of 
science requires a similar quality of perspective. 
All knowledges, together with the knowing of them, 
must be his object yonder, standing apart in its 
wholeness and symmetry. Philosophy is the least 
dogmatic, the most empirical, of all disciplines, 
since it is the only investigation that can permit 
itself to be forgetful of nothing. 

But the most comprehensive view may be the 
most distorted and false. The true order of knowl- 
edge is the difficult task of logical analysis, requir- 
ing as its chief essential some determination of 
the scope of the working conceptions of the differ- 
ent independent branches of knowledge. In the 
case of natural science this would mean an exam- 
ination of the method and results characteristic of 
this field, for the sake of defining the kind of 
truth which attaches to the laws which are being 
gradually formulated. But one must immediately 



122 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

reach either the one or the other of two very gen- 
eral conclusions. If the laws of natural science 
cover all possible knowledge of reality, then there 
is left to philosophy only the logical function of 
justifying this statement. Logic and natural sci- 
ence will then constitute the sum of knowledge. 
If, on the other hand, it be found that the aim of 
natural science is such as to exclude certain as- 
pects of reality, then philosophy will not be re- 
stricted to logical criticism, but will have a cog- 
nitive field of its own. The great majority of 
philosophers have assumed the latter of these alter- 
natives to be true, while most aggressive scientists 
have intended the former in their somewhat blind 
attacks upon " metaphysics." Although the se- 
lection of either of these alternatives involves us 
in the defence of a specific answer to a philosophi- 
cal question, the issue is inevitable in any intro- 
duction to philosophy because of its bearing upon 
the extent of the field of that study. Further- 
more there can be no better exposition of the mean- 
ing of philosophy of science than an illustration 
of its exercise. The following, then, is to be re- 
garded as on the one hand a tentative refutation 
of positivism, or the claim of natural science to he 
coextensive with hnowable reality; and on the 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 123 

other hand a programme for the procedure of phi- 
losophy with reference to natural science. 

§ 42. Science issues through imperceptible 
stages from organic habits and instincts which 
The origin of signify the possession by living creat- 

the Scientific 

interest. ures of a power to meet the environ- 

ment on its own terms. Every organism pos- 
sesses such a working knowledge of nature, and 
among men the first science consists in those habit- 
ual adjustments common to men and infra-human 
organisms. Man is already practising science 
before he recognizes it. As skill it distinguishes 
itself early in his history from lore, or untested 
tradition. Skill is familiarity with general kinds 
of events, together with ability to identify an in- 
dividual with reference to a kind, and so be pre- 
pared for the outcome. Thus man is inwardly 
prepared for the alternation of day and night, and 
the periods of the seasons. He practically antici- 
pates the procession of natural events in the count- 
less emergencies of his daily life. But science in 
the stricter sense begins when skill becomes free 
and social. 

§ 43. Skill may be said to be free when the es- 
sential terms of the action have been abstracted 
from the circumstances attending them in individ- 



124 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ual experiences, and are retained as ideal plans ap- 
SkiiiasFree. plicable to any practical occasion. The 
nionkey who swings with a trapeze from his perch 
on the side of the cage, counts upon swinging back 
again without any further effort on his own part. 
His act and its successful issue signify his practi- 
cal familiarity with the natural motions of bodies. 
We can conceive such a performance to be accom- 
panied by an almost entire failure to grasp its es- 
sentials. It would then be necessary for nearly 
the whole situation to be repeated in order to induce 
in the monkey the same action and expectation. 
He would require a similar form, color, and dis- 
tance. But he might, on the other hand, regard 
as practically identical all suspended and freely 
swinging bodies capable of affording him support, 
and quite independently of their shape, size, time, 
or place. In this latter case his skill would be 
applicable to the widest possible number of cases 
that could present themselves. Having a discern- 
ing eye for essentials, he would lose no chance of 
a swing through looking for more than the bare 
necessities. When the physicist describes the pen- 
dulum in terms of a formula such as t = 27T'\/l/g 
he exhibits a similar discernment. He has found 
that the time occupied by an oscillation of any pen- 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 125 

dulum may be calculated exclusively in terms of its 
length and the acceleration due to gravity. The 
monkey's higher proficiency and the formula alike 
represent a knowledge that is free in the sense that 
it is contained in terms that require no single fixed 
context in immediacy. The knowledge is valid 
wherever these essential terms are present; and 
calculations may be based upon these essential 
terms, while attendant circumstances vary ad infi- 
nitum. Such knowledge is said to be general or 
universal. 

There is another element of freedom, however, 
which so far has not been attributed to the monkey's 
knowledge, but which is evidently present in that 
of the physicist. The former has a practical 
ability to deal with a pendulum when he sees it. 
The latter, on the other hand, knows about a pen- 
dulum whether one be present or not. His knowl- 
edge is so retained as always to be available, even 
though it be not always applicable. His knowl- 
edge is not merely skill in treating a situation, but 
the possession of resources which he may employ 
at whatever time, and in whatever manner, may 
suit his interests. Knowing what he does about 
the pendulum, he may act from the idea of such 
a contrivance, and with the aid of it construct 



126 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

some more complex mechanism. His formulas are 
his instruments, which he may use on any occasion. 
Suppose that a situation with factors a } b, and c 
requires factor d in order to become M , as desired. 
Such a situation might easily be hopeless for an 
organism reacting directly to the stimulus abc, and 
yet be easily met by a free knowledge of d. One 
who knows that I, m, and n will produce d, may by 
these means provide the missing factor, complete 
the sum of required conditions, abed, and so obtain 
the end M. Such indirection might be used to 
obtain any required factor of the end, or of any 
near or remote means to the end. There is, in 
fact, no limit to the complexity of action made 
possible upon this basis; for since it is available 
in idea, the whole range of such knowledge may 
be brought to bear upon any individual problem. 
§ 44. But knowledge of this free type becomes 
at the same time social or institutional. It con- 
sidii as social, sists no longer in a skilful adaptation 
of the individual organism, but in a system of 
terms common to all intelligence, and preserved 
in those books and other monuments which serve 
as the articulate memory of the race. A knowl- 
edge that is social must be composed of unequivo- 
cal conceptions and fixed symbols. The mathe- 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 127 

matical laws of the exact sciences represent the 
most successful attainment of this end so far as 
form is concerned. Furthermore, the amount of 
knowledge may now be increased from generation 
to generation through the service of those who make 
a vocation of its pursuit. Natural science is thus 
a cumulative racial proficiency, which any indi- 
vidual may bring to bear upon any emergency of 
his life. 

§ 45. Such proficiency as science affords is in 
every case the anticipation of experience. This 
Science for nas a twofold value for mankind, that 

Accommoda- £ accommo ^ a f;i on anc [ that of construc- 
tion and Con- ' 

struction. tion. Primitively, where mere survival 
is the function of the organism as a whole, the 
value of accommodation is relatively fundamental. 
The knowledge of what may be expected enables 
the organism to save itself by means of its own 
counter-arrangement of natural processes. Con- 
struction is here for the sake of accommodation. 
But with the growth of civilization construction 
becomes a positive interest, and man tends to save 
himself for definite ends. Accommodation comes 
to take place for the sake of construction. Science 
then supplies the individual with the ways and 
means wherewith to execute life purposes which 



128 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

themselves tend to assume an absolute value that 
cannot be justified merely on the ground of science. 
§ 46. If natural science be animated by any 
special cognitive interest, this motive should ap- 
Method and pear in the development of its method 

Fundamental , „ , - . T . . 

Conceptions and fundamental conceptions. If that 
science. interest has been truly defined, it should 

sfcript^ve now ena bl e ns to understand the pro- 

Method, gressive and permanent in scientific in- 

vestigation as directly related to it. For the aim 
of any discipline exercises a gradual selection from 
among possible methods, and gives to its laws their 
determinate and final form. 

The descriptive method is at the present day 
fully established. A leading moral of the history 
of science is the superior usefulness of an exact 
account of the workings of nature to an explana- 
tion in terms of some qualitative potency. Expla- 
nation has been postponed by enlightened science 
until after a more careful observation of actual 
processes shall have been made ; and at length it 
has been admitted that there is no need of any 
explanation but perfect description. !Now the 
practical use of science defined above, requires no 
knowledge beyond the actual order of events. For 
such a purpose sufficient reason signifies only suffi- 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 129 

cient conditions. All other considerations are ir- 
relevant, and it is proper to ignore them. Such 
has actually been the fate of the so-called meta- 
physical solution of special problems of nature. 
The case of Kepler is the classic instance. This 
great scientist supplemented his laws of planetary 
motion with the following speculation concerning 
the agencies at work: 

" We must suppose one of two things : either that the 
moving spirits, in proportion as they are more removed 
from the sun, are more feeble ; or that there is one moving 
spirit in the centre of all the orbits, namely, in the sun, 
which urges each body the more vehemently in propor- 
tion as it is nearer ; but in more distant spaces languishes in 
consequence of the remoteness and attenuation of its 
virtue." 2 

The following passage from Hegel affords an 
interesting analogy: 

"The moon is the waterless crystal which seeks to 
complete itself by means of our sea, to quench the thirst 
of its arid rigidity, and therefore produces ebb and 
flow." 3 

No scientist has ever sought to refute either of 
these theories. They have merely been neglected. 

2 Whewell: History of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. I, p. 289. 
Quoted from Kepler: Mysterium Cosmographicum. 

3 Quoted by Sidgwick in his Philosophy, its Scope and 
Relations, p. 89. 



130 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

They were advanced in obedience to a demand for 
the ultimate explanation of the phenomena in ques- 
tion, and were obtained by applying such general 
conceptions as were most satisfying to the reasons 
of their respective authors. But they contributed 
nothing whatsoever to a practical familiarity with 
the natural course of events, in this case the times 
and places of the planets and the tides. Hence 
they have not been used in the building of science. 
In our own day investigators have become con- 
scious of their motive, and do not wait for histori- 
cal selection to exclude powers and reasons from 
their province. They deliberately seek to formu- 
late exact descriptions. To this end they employ 
symbols that shall serve to identify the terms 
of nature, and formulas that shall define their 
systematic relationship. These systems must be 
exact, or deductions cannot be made from them. 
Hence they tend ultimately to assume a mathe- 
matical form of expression. 

§ 47. But science tends to employ for these sys- 
tems only such conceptions as relate to prediction ; 
and of these the most fundamental are 

Space, Time, 

and Prediction. S p ace anc [ time. The first science to 
establish its method was the science of astronomy, 
where measurement and computation in terms of 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 131 

space and time were the most obvious means of 
description; and the general application of the 
method of astronomy by Galileo and Newton, or 
the development of mechanics, is the most impor- 
tant factor in the establishment of modern sci- 
ence upon a permanent working basis. The per- 
sistence of the term cause, testifies to the fact that 
science is primarily concerned with the determina- 
tion of events. Its definitions of objects are 
means of identification, while its laws are dynami- 
cal, i. e. } have reference to the conditions under 
which these objects arise. Thus the chemist may 
know less about the properties of water than 
the poet ; but he is preeminently skilled in its pro- 
duction from elements, and understands similarly 
the compounds into which it may enter. Now the 
general conditions of all anticipation, whereby it 
becomes exact and verifiable, are spacial and tem- 
poral. A predictable event must be assigned to 
what is here now, or there now; or what is here 
then, or there then. An experimentally verifiable 
system must contain space-time variables, for which 
can be substituted the here and now of the experi- 
menter's immediate experience. Hence science 
deals primarily with calculable places and mo- 
ments. The mechanical theory of nature owes its 



132 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

success to a union of space and time through its 
conceptions of matter and motion* And the pro- 
jected theory of energetics must satisfy the same 
conditions. 

§ 48. But, furthermore, science has, as we have 
seen, an interest in freeing its descriptions from 
The Ouantita- ^ e P ecu li ar angle and relativity of an 
tive Method, individual's experience, for the sake of 
affording him knowledge of that with which he 
must meet. Science enlightens the will by ac- 
quainting it with that which takes place in spite 
of it, and for which it must hold itself in readi- 
ness. To this end the individual benefits himself 
in so far as he eliminates himself from the objects 
which he investigates. His knowledge is useful 
in so far as it is valid for his own indefinitely 
varying stand-points, and those of other wills rec- 
ognized by him in his practical relations. But in 

4 The reader is referred to Mr. Bertrand Russell's chapters 
on matter and motion in his Principles of Mathematics, 
Vol. I. Material particles he defines as "many-one rela- 
tions of all times to some places, or of all terms of a con- 
tinuous one-dimensional series t to some terms of a con- 
tinuous three-dimensional series s." Similarly, " when 
different times, throughout any period however short, are 
correlated with different places, there is motion; when 
different times, throughout some period however short, 
are all correlated with the same place, there is rest." Op. 
cit., p. 473. 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 133 

attempting to describe objects in terms other than 
those of a specific experience, science is compelled 
to describe them in terms of one another. For this 
purpose the quantitative method is peculiarly ser- 
viceable. With its aid objects permit themselves 
to be described as multiples of one another, and as 
occupying positions in relation to one another. 
When all objects are described strictly in terms of 
one another, they are expressed in terms of arbi- 
trary units, and located in terms of arbitrary 
spacial or temporal axes of reference. Thus 
there arises the universe of the scientific imagina- 
tion, a vast complexity of material displacements 
and transformations, without color, music, pleas- 
ure, or any of all that rich variety of qualities 
that the least of human experiences contains. It 
does not completely rationalize or even completely 
describe such experiences, but formulates their suc- 
cession. To this end they are reduced to terms 
that correspond to no specific experience, and for 
this very reason may be translated again into all 
definable hypothetical experiences. The solar sys- 
tem for astronomy is not a bird's-eye view of 
elliptical orbits, with the planets and satellites in 
definite phases. ISTor is it this group of objects 
from any such point of view, or from any number 



134 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

of such points of view ; but a formulation of their 
motions that will serve as the key to an infinite 
number of their appearances. Or, consider the 
picture of the ichthysauria romping in the meso- 
zoic sea, that commonly accompanies a text-book 
of geology. Any such picture, and all such pict- 
ures, with their coloring and their temporal and 
spacial perspective, are imaginary. !No such spe- 
cial and exclusive manifolds can be defined as hav- 
ing been then and there realized. But we have a 
geological knowledge of this period, that fulfils the 
formal demands of natural science, in so far as we 
can construct this and countless other specific ex- 
periences with reference to it. 

§ 49. Science, then, is to be understood as 
springing from the practical necessity of antici- 
The General pating the environment. This antici- 

Development 

of Science. pation appears first as congenital or 
acquired reactions on the part of the organism. 
Such reactions imply a fixed coordination or sys- 
tem in the environment whereby a given circum- 
stance determines other circumstances ; and science 
proper arises as the formulation of such systems. 
The requirement that they shall apply to the 
phenomena that confront the will, determines their 
spacial, temporal, and quantitative form. The 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 135 

progress of science is marked by the growth of 
these conceptions in the direction of comprehen 
siveness on the one hand, and of refinement and 
delicacy on the other. Man lives in an environ- 
ment that is growing at the same time richer and 
more extended, but with a compensatory simplifi- 
cation in the ever closer systematization of scien- 
tific conceptions under the form of the order of 
nature. 

§ 50. At the opening of this chapter it was 
maintained that it is a function of philosophy to 
The Determi- criticise science through its generating 
Limits of Nat- P r °M em > or its self-imposed task viewed 
urai science. ag determining its province and selecting 
its categories. The above account of the origin 
and method of science must suffice as a definition 
of its generating problem, and afford the basis of 
our answer to the question of its limits. Enough 
has been said to make it clear that philosophy is 
not in the field of science, and is therefore not 
entitled to contest its result in detail or even to 
take sides within the province of its special prob- 
lems. Furthermore, philosophy should not aim to 
restrain science by the imposition of external bar- 
riers. Whatever may be said of the sufficiency of 
its categories in any region of the world, that body 



136 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

of truth of which mathematics, mechanics, and 
physics are the foundations, must be regarded as 
a whole that tends to be all-comprehensive in its 
own terms. There remains for philosophy, then, 
the critical examination of these terms, and the 
appraisal as a whole of the truth that they may 
express. 

§ 51. The impossibility of embracing the whole 
of knowledge within natural science is due to the 
Natural fact that the latter is abstract. This 

Science is 

Abstract. follows from the fact that natural sci- 
ence is governed by a selective interest. The for- 
mulation of definitions and laws in exclusively 
mechanical terms is not due to the exhaustive or 
even preeminent reality of these properties, but to 
their peculiar serviceableness in a verifiable de- 
scription of events. Natural science does not 
affirm that reality is essentially constituted of mat- 
ter, or essentially characterized by motion; but is 
interested in the mechanical aspect of reality, and 
describes it quite regardless of other evident as- 
pects and without meaning to prejudice them. 
It is unfortunately true that the scientist has rarely 
been clear in his own mind on this point. It is 
only recently that he has partially freed himself 
from the habit of construing his terms as final and 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 137 

exhaustive. 5 This he was able to do even to his 
own satisfaction, only by allowing loose rein to the 
imagination. Consider the example of the atomic 
theory. In order to describe such occurrences as 
chemical combination, or changes in volume and 
density, the scientist has employed as a unit the 
least particle, physically indivisible and qualita- 
tively homogeneous. Look for the atom in the 
body of science, and you will find it in physical 
laws governing expansion and contraction, and in 
chemical formulas. There the real responsibility 
of science ends. But whether through the need of 
popular exposition, or the undisciplined imagina- 
tion of the investigator himself, atoms have figured 
in the history of thought as round corpuscles of a 
grayish hue scurrying hither and thither, and 
armed with special appliances wherewith to lock 
in molecular embrace. Although this is nonsense, 
we need not on that account conclude that there 

6 That the scientist still permits himself to teach the 
people a loose exoteric theory of reality, is proven by Pro- 
fessor Ward's citation of instances in his Naturalism and 
Agnosticism. So eminent a physicist as Lord Kelvin is 
quoted as follows : " You can imagine particles of some- 
thing, the thing whose motion constitutes light. This 
thing we call the luminiferous ether. That is the only 
substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we 
are sure of, and that is the reality and substantiality of the 
luminiferous ether." Vol. I, p. 113. 



138 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

are no atoms. There are atoms in precisely the 
sense intended by scientific law, in that the formu- 
las computed with the aid of this concept are true 
of certain natural processes. The conception of 
ether furnishes a similar case. Science is not re- 
sponsible for the notion of a quivering gelatinous 
substance pervading space, but only for certain 
laws that, e. g., describe the velocity of light in 
terms of the vibration. It is true that there is 
such a thing as ether, not as gratuitously rounded 
out by the imagination, with various attributes of 
immediate experience, but just in so far as this 
concept is employed in verified descriptions of 
radiation, magnetism, or electricity. Strictly 
speaking science asserts nothing about the existence 
of ether, but only about the behavior, e. g., of light. 
If true descriptions of this and other phenomena 
are reached by employing units of wave propaga- 
tion in an elastic medium, then ether is proved to 
exist in precisely the same sense that linear feet 
are proved to exist, if it be admitted that there 
are 90,000,000 x 5,280 of them between the earth 
and the sun. And to imagine in the one case a 
jelly with all the qualities of texture, color, and 
the like, that an individual object of sense would 
possess, is much the same as in the other to imag- 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 139 

ine the heavens filled with foot-rules and tape- 
measures. There is but one safe procedure in 
dealing with scientific concepts : to regard them as 
true so far as they describe, and no whit further. 
To supplement the strict meaning which has been 
verified and is contained in the formularies of 
science, with such vague predicates as will suffice 
to make entities of them, is mere ineptness and 
confusion of thought. And it is only such a sup- 
plementation that obscures their abstractness. For 
a mechanical description of things, true as it doubt- 
less is, is even more indubitably incomplete. 

§ 52. But though the abstractness involved in 
scientific description is open and deliberate, we 
The Meaning must come to a more precise under- 

of Abstract- 
ness in Truth, standing of it, if we are to draw any 

conclusion as to what it involves. In his " Prin- 
ciples of Human Knowledge," the English phi- 
losopher Bishop Berkeley raises the question as to 
the universal validity of mathematical demonstra- 
tions. If we prove from the image or figure of an 
isosceles right triangle that the sum of its angles 
is equal to two right angles, how can we know 
that this proposition holds of all triangles? 

" To which I answer, that, though the idea I have in 
view whilst I make the demonstration be, for instance, 



140 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

that of an isosceles rectangular triangle whose sides are 
of a determinate length, I may nevertheless be certain 
it extends to all other rectilinear triangles, of what sort 
or bigness soever. And that because neither the right 
angle, nor the equality, nor determinate length of the 
sides are at all concerned in the demonstration. It is 
true the diagram I have in view includes all these par- 
ticulars; but then there is not the least mention made of 
them in the proof of the proposition." 9 

Of the total conditions present in the concrete 
picture of a triangle, one may in one's calculations 
neglect as many as one sees fit, and work with the 
remainder. Then, if one has clearly distinguished 
the conditions used, one may confidently assert 
that whatever has been found true of them holds 
regardless of the neglected conditions. These may 
be missing or replaced by others, provided the 
selected or (for any given investigation) essential 
conditions are not affected. That which is true 
once is true always, provided time is not one of 
its conditions; that which is true in one place is 
true everywhere, provided location is not one of its 
conditions. But, given any concrete situation, the 
more numerous the conditions one ignores in one's 
calculations, the less adequate are one's calcula- 
tions to that situation. The number of its inhabi- 

9 Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduc- 
tion. Edition of Fraser, p. 248. 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 141 

tants, and any mathematical operation made with 
that number, is true, but only very abstractly true 
of a nation. A similar though less radical ab- 
stractness appertains to natural science. Simple 
qualities of sound or color, and distinctions of 
beauty or moral worth, together with many other 
ingredients of actual experience attributed therein 
to the objects of nature, are ignored in the me- 
chanical scheme. There is a substitution of cer- 
tain mechanical arrangements in the case of the 
first group of properties, the simple qualities of 
sense, so that they may be assimilated to the gen- 
eral scheme of events, and their occurrence pre- 
dicted. But their intrinsic qualitative character 
is not reckoned with, even in psychology, where 
the physiological method finally replaces them with 
brain states. Over and above these neglected 
properties of things there remain the purposive 
activities of thought. It is equally preposterous 
to deny them and to describe them in mechani- 
cal terms. It is plain, then, that natural science 
calculates upon the basis of only a fraction of the 
conditions that present themselves in actual experi- 
ence. Its conclusions, therefore, though true so 
far as they go, and they may be abstractly true of 
everything, are completely true of nothing. 



142 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

§ 53. Such, in brief, is the general charge of 
inadequacy which may be urged against natural 
But Scientific science, not in the spirit of detraction, 

Truth is Valid 

for Reality. but for the sake of a more sound belief 
concerning reality. The philosopher falls into 
error no less radical than that of the dogmatic 
scientist, when he charges the scientist with un- 
truth, and attaches to his concepts the predicate of 
unreality. The fact that the concepts of science 
are selected, and only inadequately true of reality, 
should not be taken to mean that they are sportive 
or arbitrary. They are not " devices " or abbre- 
viations, in any sense that does not attach to such 
symbolism as all thought involves. Nor are they 
merely " hypothetical," though like all thought 
they are subject to correction. 7 The scientist does 
not merely assert that the equation for energy is 
true if nature's capacity for work be measurable, 
but that such is actually the case. The statistician 
does not arrive at results contingent upon the sup- 
position that men are numerable, but declares his 
sums and averages to be categorically true. Simi- 
larly scientific laws are true; only, to be sure, so 

7 The reader who cares to pursue this topic further is 
referred to the writer's discussion of "Professor Ward's 
Philosophy of Science" in the Journal of Philosophy. Psy- 
chology and Scientific Methods, Vol. I, No. 13. 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 143 

far as they go, but with no condition save the con- 
dition that attaches to all knowledge, viz., that it 
shall not need correction. The philosophy of sci- 
ence, therefore, is not the adversary of science, but 
supervenes upon science in the interests of the ideal 
of final truth. No philosophy of science is sound 
which does not primarily seek by an analysis of 
scientific concepts to understand science on its own 
grounds. Philosophy may understand science bet- 
ter than science understands itself, but only by 
holding fast to the conviction of its truth, and in- 
cluding it within whatever account of reality it 
may be able to formulate. 

§ 54. Though philosophy be the most ancient 
and most exalted of human disciplines, it is not 
Relative infrequently charged with being the 

* T3i C U C £11 

Value of most unprofitable. Science has amassed 

Science and 

Philosophy, a fortune of information, which has 
facilitated life and advanced civilization. Is not 
philosophy, on the other hand, all programme and 
idle questioning ? In the first place, no question- 
ing is idle that is logically possible. It is true 
that philosophy shows her skill rather in the ask- 
ing than in the answering of questions. But the 
formal pertinence of a question is of the greatest 
significance. No valid though unanswered ques- 



144 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tion can have a purely negative value, and especially 
as respects the consistency or completeness of truth. 
But, in the second place, philosophy with all its 
limitations serves mankind as indispensably as 
science. If science supplies the individual with 
means of self-preservation, and the instruments of 
achievement, philosophy supplies the ideals, or the 
objects of deliberate construction. Such reflection 
as justifies the adoption of a fundamental life pur- 
pose is always philosophical. For every judgment 
respecting final worth is a judgment sub specie 
eternitatis. And the urgency of life requires the 
individual to pass such judgments. It is true that 
however persistently reflective he may be in the 
matter, his conclusion will be premature in con- 
sideration of the amount of evidence logically de- 
manded for such a judgment. But he must be as 
wise as he can, or he will be as foolish as conven- 
tionality and blind impulse may impel him to be. 
Philosophy determines for society what every in- 
dividual must practically determine upon for him- 
self, the most reasonable plan of reality as a whole 
which the data and reflection of an epoch can 
afford. It is philosophy's service to mankind to 
compensate for the enthusiasm and concentration 
of the specialist, a service needed in every " pres- 



NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 145 

ent day." Apart from the philosopher, public 
opinion is the victim of sensationalism, and indi- 
vidual opinion is further warped by accidental 
propinquity. It is the function of philosophy to 
interpret knowledge for the sake of a sober and 
wise belief. The philosopher is the true prophet, 
appearing before men in behalf of that which is 
finally the truth. He is the spokesman of the 
most considerate and comprehensive reflection pos- 
sible at any stage in the development of human 
thought. Owing to a radical misconception of 
function, the man of science has in these later days 
begun to regard himself as the wise man, and to 
teach the people. Popular materialism is the 
logical outcome of this determination of belief by 
natural science. It may be that this is due as 
much to the indifference of the philosopher as to 
the forwardness of the scientist, but in any case 
the result is worse than conservative loyalty to re- 
ligious tradition. For religion is corrected surely 
though slowly by the whole order of advancing 
truth. Its very inflexibility makes it proof 
against an over-emphasis upon new truth. It has 
generally turned out in time that the obstinate 
man of religion was more nearly right than the 
adaptable intellectual man of fashion. But phi- 



146 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

losophy, as a critique of science for the sake of 
faith, should provide the individual religious be- 
liever with intellectual enlightenment and gentle- 
ness. The quality, orderliness, and inclusiveness 
of knowledge, finally determine its value ; and the 
philosopher, premature as his synthesis may some 
day prove to be, is the wisest man of his own gen- 
eration. From him the man of faith should obtain 
such discipline of judgment as shall enable him 
to be fearless of advancing knowledge, because ac- 
quainted with its scope, and so intellectually can- 
did with all his visions and his inspirations. 



PART II 

THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF 
PHILOSOPHY 



CHAPTER VI 

METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 

§ 55. The stand-point and purpose of the phi- 
losopher define his task, but they do not necessarily 
The impossi- prearrange the division of it. That the 

bility of an . . . . . 

Absolute task is a complex one, embracing many 

Division of the it it i • i , i 

Problem of subordinate problems which must be 
philosophy, treated seriatim, is attested both by the 
breadth of its scope and the variety of the inter- 
ests from which it may be approached. But this 
complexity is qualified by the peculiar importance 
which here attaches to unity. That which lends 
philosophical quality to any reflection is a stead- 
fast adherence to the ideals of inclusiveness and 
consistency. Hence, though the philosopher must 
of necessity occupy himself with subordinate prob- 
lems, these cannot be completely isolated from one 
another, and solved successively. Perspective is 
his most indispensable requisite, and he has solved 
no problem finally until he has provided for the 
solution of all. His own peculiar conceptions are 

149 



150 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

those which order experience, and reconcile such 
aspects of it as other interests have distinguished. 
Hence the compatibility of any idea with all other 
ideas is the prime test of its philosophical suffi- 
ciency. On these grounds it may confidently be 
asserted that the work of philosophy cannot be 
assigned by the piece to different specialists, and 
then assembled. There are no special philosoph- 
ical problems which can be finally solved upon 
their own merits. Indeed, such problems could 
never even be named, for in their discreteness they 
would cease to be philosophical. 

The case of metaphysics and epistemology 
affords an excellent illustration. The former of 
these is commonly defined as the theory of real- 
ity or of first principles, the latter as the theory 
of knowledge. But the most distinctive philosoph- 
ical movement of the nineteenth century issues 
from the idea that knowing and being are iden- 
tical. 1 The prime reality is defined as a knowing 
mind, and the terms of reality are interpreted as 
terms of a cognitive process. Ideas and logical 
principles constitute the world. It is evident that 
in this Hegelian philosophy epistemology embraces 

1 The post-Kantian movement in Germany — especially 
in so far as influenced by Hegel. See Chap. XII. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 151 

metaphysics. In defining the relations of knowl- 
edge to its object, one has already defined one's 
fundamental philosophical conception, while logic, 
as the science of the universal necessities of 
thought, will embrace the first principles of real- 
ity. Now, were one to divide and arrange the prob- 
lems of philosophy upon this basis, it is evident 
that one would not have deduced the arrangement 
from the general problem of philosophy, but from 
a single attempted solution of that problem. It 
might serve as an exposition of Hegel, but not as 
a general philosophical programme. 

Another case in point is provided by the present- 
day interest in what is called " pragmatism." 2 
This doctrine is historically connected with Kant's 
principle of the " primacy of the practical rea- 
son," in which he maintained that the conscious- 
ness of duty is a profounder though less scientific 
insight than the knowledge of objects. The cur- 
rent doctrine maintains that thought with its fruits 
is an expression of interest, and that the will which 
evinces and realizes such an interest is more orig- 
inal and significant than that which the thinking 
defines. Such a view attaches a peculiar impor- 
tance to the springs of conduct, and in its more 
2 Cf. §203. 



152 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

systematic development 3 has regarded ethics as 
the true propaedeutic and proof of philosophy. But 
to make ethics the key-stone of the arch, is to de- 
fine a special philosophical system; for it is the 
very problem of philosophy to dispose the parts of 
knowledge with a view to systematic construction. 
The relation of the provinces of metaphysics, epis- 
temology, logic, and ethics cannot, then, be defined 
without entering these provinces and answering 
the questions proper to them. 

§ 56. Since the above terms exist, however, 
there can be no doubt but that important divisions 
The Depend- within the general aim of philosophy 

ence of the 

Order of Phil- have actually been made. The inevi- 

osophical . 

Problems tableness of it appears m the variety of 

upon the Ini- .. . . . .. . 

tiai interest, the sources from which that aim may 
spring. The point of departure will always de- 
termine the emphasis and the application which 
the philosophy receives. If philosophy be needed 
to supplement more special interests, it will re- 
ceive a particular character from whatever inter- 
est it so supplements. He who approaches it from 
a definite stand-point will find in it primarily an 
interpretation of that stand-point. 

§ 57. There are two sources of the philosophical 
*E. g., the system of Fichte. Cf. § 177. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 153 

aim, which are perennial in their human signifi- 
cance. He, firstly, who begins with the demands 
Philosophy as of life and its ideals, looks to philoso- 

the Interpreta- 

tion of Life, phy for a reconciliation of these with 
the orderly procedure of nature. His philosophy 
will receive its form from its illumination of life, 
and it will be an ethical or religious philosophy. 
Spinoza, the great seventeenth-century philosopher 
who justified mysticism after the manner of mathe- 
matics, 4 displays this temper in his philosophy : 

"After experience had taught me that all the usual 
surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing 
that none of the objects of my fears contained in them- 
selves anything either good or bad, except in so far as 
the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to in- 
quire whether there might be some real good having 
power to communicate itself, which would affect the 
mind singly, to the exclusion of all else : whether, in fact, 
there might be anything of which the discovery and 
attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, su- 
preme, and unending happiness." 5 

In pursuance of this aim, though he deals with 
the problem of being in the rigorous logical fash- 
ion of his day, the final words of his great work 
are, " Of Human Freedom " : 

"Whereas the wise man, in so far as he is regarded as 
such, is scarcely at all disturbed in spirit, but, being 

* See Chap. XI. 

5 Spinoza: On the Improvement of the Understanding. 
Translation by Elwes, p. 3. 



154 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

conscious of himself, and of God, and of things, by a 
certain eternal necessity, never ceases to be, but always 
possesses true acquiescence of his spirit. If the way which 
I have pointed out as leading to this result seems exceed- 
ingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs 
must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would 
it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and 
could without great labor be found, that it should be by 
almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are 
as difficult as they are rare." 6 

§ 58. On the other hand, one who looks to phi- 
losophy for the extension and correction of scien- 
pwiosophyas tific knowledge will be primarily inter- 

the Extension . _ . , 

of Science. ested m the philosophical definition of 
ultimate conceptions, and in the method wherewith 
such a definition is obtained. Thus the philosophy 
of the scientist will tend to be logical and meta- 
physical. Such is the case with Descartes and 
Leibniz, who are nevertheless intimately related to 
Spinoza in the historical development of philos- 
ophy. 

" Several years have now elapsed/' says the former, 
"since I first became aware that I had accepted, even 
from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that 
consequently what I afterward based on such principles 
was highly doubtful; and from that time I was "con- 
vinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to 
rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of com- 

8 Spinoza: Ethics, Part V, Proposition XLII. Translation 
by Elwes, p. 270. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 155 

mencing anew the work of building from the foundation, 
if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure 
in the sciences." 7 

Leibniz's mind was more predominantly logical 
even than Descartes's. He sought in philosophy a 
supreme intellectual synthesis, a science of the 
universe. 

" Although," he says retrospectively, " I am one of 
those who have worked much at mathematics, I have 
none the less meditated upon philosophy from my youth 
up; for it always seemed to me that there was a possi- 
bility of establishing something solid in philosophy by 
clear demonstrations. ... I perceived, after much medi- 
tation, that it is impossible to find the principles of a 
real unity in matter alone, or in that which is only pas- 
sive, since it is nothing but a collection or aggregation of 
parts ad infinitum." 8 

§ 59. Though these types are peculiarly repre- 
sentative, they are by no means exhaustive. There 
The Historical are as many possibilities of emphasis as 

Differentia- / L r 

tion of the there are incentives to philosophical re- 

Philosophical 

Problem. flection. It is not possible to exhaust 
the aspects of experience which may serve as bases 
from which such thought may issue, and to which, 
after its synthetic insight, it may return. But it 
is evident that such divisions of philosophy rep- 

7 Descartes: Meditations, I. Translation by Veitch, p. 97. 

8 Leibniz: New System of the Nature of Substances. Trans- 
lation by Latta, pp. 299, 300. 



156 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

resent in their order, and in the sharpness with 
which they are sundered, the intellectual autobiog- 
raphy of the individual philosopher. There is but 
one method by which that which is peculiar either 
to the individual, or to the special position which 
he adopts, may be eliminated. Though it is im- 
possible to tabulate the empty programme of phi- 
losophy, we may name certain special problems that 
have appeared in its history. Since this history 
comprehends the activities of many individuals, a 
general validity attaches to it. There has been, 
moreover, a certain periodicity in the emergence of 
these problems, so that it may fairly be claimed for 
them that they indicate inevitable phases in the 
development of human reflection upon experience. 
They represent a normal differentiation of interest 
which the individual mind, in the course of its 
own thinking, tends to follow. It is true that it 
can never be said with assurance that any age is 
utterly blind to any aspect of experience. This is 
obviously the case with the practical and theoreti- 
cal interests which have just been distinguished. 
There is no age that does not have some practical 
| consciousness of the world as a whole, nor any 
. which does not seek more or less earnestly to uni- 
versalize its science. But though it compel us to 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 157 

deal abstractly with, historical epochs, there is 
abundant compensation in the possibility which 
this method affords of finding the divisions of 
philosophy in the manifestation of the living phil- 
osophical spirit. 

§ 60. To Thales, one of the Seven Wise Men of 
Greece, is commonly awarded the honor of being 
Metaphysics khe founder of European philosophy. 
Fundamental -^ he d esery e this distinction, it is on 
conception. accoim t f the question which he raised, 
and not on account of the answer which he gave 
to it. Aristotle informs us that Thales held 
" water " to be " the material cause of all things." 9 
This crude theory is evidently due to an interest 
in the totality of things, an interest which is 
therefore philosophical. But the interest of this 
first philosopher has a more definite character. 
It looks toward the definition in terms of some 
single conception, of the constitution of the world. 
As a child might conceivably think the moon to 
be made of green cheese, so philosophy in its child- 
hood thinks here of all things as made of water. 
Water was a well-known substance, possessing well- 
known predicates. To define all nature in terms 
of it, was to maintain that in spite of superficial 
9 Burnet: Early Greek Philosophy, p. 42. 



158 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

differences, all things have these predicates in com- 
mon. They are the predicates which qualify for 
reality, and compose a community of nature from 
which all the individual objects and events of 
nature arise. The successors of Thales were evi- 
dently dissatisfied with his fundamental concep- 
tion, because of its lack of generality. They 
seized upon vaguer substances like air and fire, for 
the very definiteness of the nature of water for- 
bids the identification of other substances with it. 
But what is so obviously true of water is scarcely 
less true of air and fire ; and it appeared at length 
that only a substance possessing the most general 
characters of body, such as shape, size, and mobil- 
ity, could be thought as truly primeval and univer- 
sal. In this wise a conception like our modern 
physical conception of matter came at length into 
vogue. Now the problem of which these were all 
tentative solutions is, in general, the problem of 
metaphysics; although this term belongs to a later 
era, arising only from the accidental place of the 
discussion of first principles after physics in the 
system of Aristotle. The attempt to secure a most 
fundamental conception which attaches some defi- 
nite meaning to the reality including and inform- 
ing every particular thing, is metaphysics. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 159 

§ 61. It must not be supposed that metaphysics 
is dogmatically committed to the reduction of all 
Monism and reality to a unity of nature. It is quite 
Pluralism. consistent with its purpose that the 
parts of reality should be found to compose a 
group, or an indefinite multitude of irreducibly 
different entities. But it is clear that even such 
an account of things deals with what is true of all 
reality, and even in acknowledging the variety of 
its constituents, attributes to them some kind of 
relationship. The degree to which such a relation- 
ship is regarded as intimate and essential, deter- 
mines the degree to which any metaphysical sys- 
tem is monistic, 10 rather than pluralistic. But the 
significance of this difference will be better appre- 
ciated after a further differentiation of the meta- 
physical problem has been noted. 

§ 62. It has already been suggested that the 
test of Thales's conception lay in the possibility of 
Ontology and deriving nature from it. A world prin- 
ConTern Bring ciple must be fruitful. Now an ab- 
and Process. gtrac |. distinction has prevailed more or 
less persistently in metaphysics, between the gen- 
eral definition of being, called ontology, and the 

10 No little ambiguity attaches to the term "monism" 
in current usage, because of its appropriation by those who 



160 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

study of the processes wherewith being is divided 
into things and events. This latter study has to 
do primarily with the details of experience enu- 
merated and systematized by the natural sciences. 
To reconcile these, or the course of nature, with 
the fundamental definition of being, is the prob- 
lem of cosmology. Cosmology is the construing of 
the prima facie reality in terms of the essential 
reality. It is the proof and the explanation of 
ontology. Since the most familiar part of the 
prima facie reality, the part almost exclusively no- 
ticed by the naive mind, is embraced within the 
field of the physical sciences, the term cosmology 
has come more definitely to signify the philosophy 
of nature. It embraces such an examination of 
space, time, matter, causality, etc., as seeks to 
answer the most general questions about them, and 
provide for them in the world thought of as most 
profoundly real. Such a study receives its philo- 
sophical character from its affiliation with ontol- 
ogy, as the latter would find its application in 
cosmology. 

§ 63. But in addition to the consideration of 

maintain that the universe is unitary and homogeneous in 
'physical terms (cf. § 108). It should properly be used 
to emphasize the unity of the world in any terms. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 161 

the various parts of nature, cosmology has com- 
Mechanicai monly dealt with a radical and far- 
caftaamohf-" reacn i n g alternative that appeared at 
gies * the very dawn of metaphysics. Dif- 

ferences may ariss within a world constituted of 
a single substance or a small group of ultimate 
substances, by changes in the relative position and 
grouping of the parts. Hence the virtue of the 
conception of motion. The theory which explains 
all differences by motions of the parts of a quali- 
tatively simple world, is called mechanism. An- 
other source of change familiar to naive experi- 
ence is will, or the action of living creatures. 
According to the mechanical theory, changes occur 
on account of the natural motions of the parts 
of matter; according to the latter or teleological 
conception, changes are made by a formative 
agency directed to some end. Among the early 
Greek philosophers, Leucippus was an exponent of 
mechanism. 

"He says that the worlds arise when many bodies 
are collected together into the mighty void from the 
surrounding space and rush together. They come into 
collision, and those which are of similar shape and like 
form become entangled, and from their entanglement 
the heavenly bodies arise." " 

11 Burnet: Op. cit., p. 358. 



162 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Anaxagoras, on the other hand, was famed for his 
doctrine of the Nous, or Intelligence, to whose di- 
rection he attributed the whole process of the world. 
The following is translated from extant fragments 
of his book, " irepl <f>v<rea><;" : 

" And Nous had power over the whole revolution, so 
that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began 
to revolve first from a small beginning; but the revolu- 
tion now extends over a larger space, and will extend 
over a larger still. And all the things that are mingled 
together and separated off and distinguished are all 
known by the Nous. And Nous set in order all things 
that were to be and that were, and all things that are 
not now and that are, and this revolution in which now 
revolve the stars and the sun and the moon, and the air 
and the ether that are separated off." 12 

§ 64. It is clear, furthermore, that the doctrine 
of Anaxagoras not only names a distinct kind of 
Dualism. cause, but also ascribes to it an inde- 
pendence and intrinsic importance that do not 
belong to motion. Whereas motion is a property 
of matter, intelligence is an originative power 
working out purposes of its own choosing. Hence 
we have here to do with a new ontology. If we 
construe ultimate being in terms of mind, we have 
a definite substitute for the physical theories out- 
lined above. Such a theory is scarcely to be at- 
tributed to any Greek philosopher of the early 
12 Burnet: Op. (At., p. 284. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 163 

period ; it belongs to a more sophisticated stage in 
the development of thought, after the rise of the 
problem of episteniology. But Anaxagoras's sharp 
distinction between the material of the world on 
the one hand, and the author of its order and evo- 
lution on the other, is in itself worthy of notice. 
It contains the germ of a recurrent philosophical 
dualism, which differs from pluralism in that it 
finds two and only two fundamental divisions of 
being, the physical, material, or potential on the 
one hand, and the mental, formal, or ideal on the 
other. 

§ 65. Finally, the alternative possibilities which 
these cosmological considerations introduce, bear 
The New directly upon the general question of 
Mon^nfand tne interdependence of the parts of the 
Pluralism. WO rld, a question which has already 
appeared as pertinent in ontology. Monism and 
pluralism now obtain a new meaning. Where the 
world process is informed with some singleness 
of plan, as teleology proposes, the parts are recip- 
rocally necessary, and inseparable from the unity. 
Where, on the other hand, the processes are random 
and reciprocally fortuitous, as Leucippus proposes, 
the world as a whole is an aggregate rather than a 
unity. In this way uniformity in kind of being 



164 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

may prevail in a world the relations of whose 
parts are due to chance, while diversity in kind of 
being may prevail in a world knit together by some 
thorough-going plan of organization. Thus mon- 
ism and pluralism are conceptions as proper to cos- 
mology as to ontology. 

But enough has been said to demonstrate the 
interdependence of ontology and cosmology, of the 
theory of being and the theory of differentiation 
and process. Such problems can be only abstractly 
sundered, and the distinctive character of any 
metaphysical system will usually consist in some 
theory determining their relation. Philosophy 
returns to these metaphysical problems with its 
thought enriched and its method complicated, after 
becoming thoroughly alive to the problems of 
epistemology, logic, and ethics. 

§66. Epistemology is the theory of the possibil- 
ity of knowledge, and issues from criticism and 
Epistemology scepticism. If we revert again to the 

Seeks to Un- 
derstand the history of Greek philosophy, we find a 

Possibility of 

Knowledge. first period of enterprising speculation 
giving place to a second period of hesitancy and 
doubt. This phase of thought occurs simulta- 
neously with the brilliantly humanistic age of 
Pericles, and it is undoubtedly true that energy is 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 165 

withdrawn from speculation largely for the sake 
of expending it in the more lively and engaging 
pursuits of politics and art. But there are patent 
reasons within the sphere of philosophy itself for 
entailment of activity and taking of stock. For 
three centuries men have taken their philosophical 
powers for granted, and used them without ques- 
tioning them. Repeated attacks upon the prob- 
lem of reality have resulted in no concensus of 
opinion, but only in a disagreement among the 
wise men themselves. A great variety of mere 
theories has been substituted for the old unanimity 
of religious tradition and practical life. It is 
natural under these circumstances to infer that 
in philosophy man has overreached himself. He 
would more profitably busy himself with affairs 
that belong to his own sphere, and find a basis for 
life in his immediate relations with his fellows. 
The sophists, learned in tradition, and skilled in 
disputation, but for the most part entirely lacking 
in originality, are the new prophets. As teachers 
of rhetoric and morals, they represent the prac- 
tical and secular spirit of their age ; while in their 
avoidance of speculation, and their critical justifi- 
cation of that course, they express its sceptical 
philosophy. 






166 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

§ 67. In their self-justification certain of the 
sophists attached themselves to a definite doctrine 
Scepticism, maintained by those of their prede- 
and^nosti- cessors an d contemporaries who were 
cism * atomists, or followers of that same 

Leucippus whom we have quoted. This doctrine 
was the result of an attempt to construe perception 
in terms of the motion of atoms. Outer objects 
were said to give off fine particles which, through 
the mediation of the sense organs, impinged upon 
the soul-atom. But it was evident even to the early- 
exponents of this theory that according to such 
an account, each perceiver is relegated to a world 
peculiar to his own stand-point. His perception 
informs him concerning his own states as affected 
by things, rather than concerning the things them- 
selves. Upon this ground the great sophist Pro- 
tagoras is said to have based his dictum : Hdvrtov 
Xprj/xdrtov fxirpov avdpwrros, — " Man is the measure 
of all things." This is the classic statement of the 
doctrine of relativity. But we have now entered 
v " into the province of epistemology, and various 
alternatives confront us. Reduce thought to per- 
ception, define perception as relative to each indi- 
vidual, and you arrive at scepticism, or the denial 
of the possibility of valid knowledge. Plato ex- 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 167 

pounds this consequence in the well-known discus- 
sion of Protagoras that occurs in the " Theaetetus." 

"I am charmed with his doctrine, that what appears 
is to each one, but I wonder that he did not begin his 
book on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a dog- 
faced baboon, or some other yet stranger monster which 
has sensation, is the measure of all things; then he might 
have shown a magnificent contempt for our opinion of 
him by informing us at the outset that while we were 
reverencing him like a God for his wisdom, he was no 
better than a tadpole, not to speak of his fellow-men — 
would not this have produced an overpowering effect? 
For if truth is only sensation, and no man can discern 
another's feelings better than he, or has any superior 
right to determine whether his opinion is true or false, 
but each, as we have several times repeated, is to himself 
the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and 
right, why, my friend, should Protagoras be preferred 
to the place of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be 
well paid, and we poor ignoramuses have to go to him, 
if each one is the measure of his own wisdom? . . . 
The attempt to supervise or refute the notions or opinions 
of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of folly, 
if to each man his own are right; and this must be the 
case if Protagoras's Truth is the real truth, and the 
philosopher is not merely amusing himself by giving 
oracles out of the shrine of his book." 13 

This is the full swing of the pendulum from dog- 
matism, or the uncritical conviction of truth. A 
modified form of scepticism has been developed in 
these later days under the influence of natural sci- 

13 Plato: Theoetetus, 161. Translation by Jowett. Ref- 
erences to Plato are to the marginal paging. 



168 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ence, and is called agnosticism or positivism. It 
accepts the Protagorean doctrine only in the sense 
of attributing to human knowledge as a whole an 
incapacity for exceeding the range of perception. 
Beyond this realm of natural science, where 
theories can be sensibly verified, lies the unknow- 
able realm, more real, but forever inaccessible. 

§ 68. It is important to note that both scepti- 
cism and agnosticism agree in regarding percep- 
The Source tion as the essential factor in knowledge. 

and Criterion 

of Knowledge bo lar at any rate as our knowledge is 
Empiricism concerned, the certification of being con- 

and Rational- • , . • •..,., T7 - -. ■• 

ism sists m perceivability. .Knowledge is 

Mysticism. coextensive with actual and possible 

human experience. This account of the source 
and criterion of knowledge is called empiricism, 
in distinction from the counter-theory of ration- 
alism. 

The rationalistic motive was a quickening in- 
fluence in Greek philosophy long before it became 
deliberate and conspicuous in Socrates and Plato. 
Parmenides, founder of the Eleatic School, has 
left behind him a poem divided into two parts: 
" The Way of Truth " and " The Way of Opin- 
ion." 14 In the first of these he expounds his 

u Burnet: Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 184, 187. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 169 

esoteric philosophy, which is a definition of being 
established by dialectical reasoning. He finds that 
being must be single, eternal, and changeless, 
because otherwise it cannot be thought and defined 
without contradiction. The method which Par- 
menides here employs presupposes that knowledge 
consists in understanding rather than perception. 
Indeed, he regards the fact that the world of the 
senses is manifold and mutable as of little conse- 
quence to the wise man. The world of sense is 
the province of vulgar opinion, while that of rea- 
son is the absolute truth revealed only to the phi- 
losopher. The truth has no concern with appear- 
ance, but is answerable only to the test of 
rationality. That world is real which one is able 
by thinking to make intelligible. The world is 
what a world must be in order to be possible at all, 
and the philosopher can deduce it directly from the 
very conditions of thought which it must satisfy. 
He who would know reality may disregard what 
seems to be, provided he can by reflective analysis 
discover certain general necessities to which being 
must conform. This is rationalism in its extreme 
form. 

The rationalism of Socrates was more moderate, 
as it was more fruitful than that of Parmenides. 



170 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

As is well known, Socrates composed no philo- 
sophical books, but sought to inculcate wisdom in 
his teaching and conversation. His method of 
inculcating wisdom was to evoke it in his inter- 
locutor by making him considerate of the meaning 
of his speech. Through his own questions he 
sought to arouse the questioning spirit, which 
should weigh the import of words, and be satis- 
fied with nothing short of a definite and consistent 
judgment. In the Platonic dialogues the Socratic 
method obtains a place in literature. In the 
" Thesetetus," which is, perhaps, the greatest of all 
epistemological treatises, Socrates is represented as 
likening his vocation to that of the midwife. 

"Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like 
theirs, but differs in that I attend men, and not women, 
and I look after their souls when they are in labor, and 
not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in 
thoroughly examining whether the thought which the 
mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a 
noble and true birth. And, like the midwives, I am 
barren, and the reproach which is often made against 
me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit 
to answer them myself, is very just; the reason is that 
the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow 
me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all 
wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention 
or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with 
me profit. . . . It is quite clear that they never 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 171 

learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to 
which they cling are of their own making." 1B 

The principle underlying this method is the insist- 
ence that a proposition, to be true of reality, must 
at least bespeak a mind that is true to itself, in- 
ternally luminous, and free from contradiction. 
That which is to me nothing that I can express in 
form that will convey precise meaning and bear 
analysis, is so far nothing at all. Being is not, 
as the empiricist would have it, ready at hand, 
ours for the looking, but is the fruit of critical 
reflection. Only reason, overcoming the relativity 
of perception, and the chaos of popular opinion, 
can lay hold on the universal truth. 

A very interesting tendency to clothe the articu- 
lations of thought with the immediacy of percep- 
tion is exhibited in mysticism, which attributes the 
highest cognitive power to an experience that tran- 
scends thought, an ineffable insight that is the oc- 
casional reward of thought and virtuous living. 
This theory would seem to owe its great vigor to 
the fact that it promises to unite the universality 
of the rational object with the vivid presence of 
the empirical object, though it sacrifices the defi- 
nite content of both. The mystic, empiricist, and 

15 Plato: Thecetetus, 150 B. Translation by Jowett. 






172 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

rationalist are in these several ways led to revise 
their metaphysics upon the basis of their episte- 
mology, or to define reality in terms dictated by 
the means of knowing it. 

§ 69. But within the general field of episte- 
mology there has arisen another issue of even 
The Relation greater significance in its bearing upon 

of Knowledge 

to its object metaphysics. The first issue, as we 

According to 

Realism, and have seen, has reference to the criterion 

the Represent- . , 1 . . 

ative Theory, oi knowledge, to the possibility oi ar- 
riving at certainty about reality, and the choice of 
means to that end. A second question arises, con- 
cerning the relation between the knowledge and its 
object or that which is known. This problem 
does not at first appear as an epistemological diffi- 
culty, but is due to the emphasis which the moral 
and religious interests of men give to the concep- 
tion of the self. My knowing is a part of me, a 
function of that soul whose welfare and eternal 
happiness I am seeking to secure. Indeed, my 
knowing is, so the wise men have always taught, 
the greatest of my prerogatives. Wisdom apper- 
tains to the philosopher, as folly to the fool. But 
though my knowledge be a part of me, and in me, 
the same cannot, lightly at any rate, be said of 
what I know. It would seem that I must dis- 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 173 

tinguish between the knowledge, which is my act 
or state, an event in my life, and the known^which 
is object, and belongs to the context of the outer 
world. The object of knowledge would then be 
quite independent of the circumstance that I know 
it. This theory has acquired the name of real- 
ism, 16 and is evidently as close to common sense 
as any epistemological doctrine can be said to be. 
If the knowledge consists in some sign or symbol 
which in my mind stands for the object, but is 

16 Much ambiguity attaches to the terms " realism" and 
"idealism" in current usage. The first had at one time in 
the history of philosophy a much narrower meaning than 
that which it now possesses. It was used to apply to those 
who, after Plato, believed in the independent reality of ideas, 
universals, or general natures. Realists in this sense were 
opposed to nominalists and conceptualists. Nominalism main- 
tained the exclusive reality of individual substances, and re- 
duced ideas to particular signs having, like the name, a purely 
symbolical or descriptive value. Conceptualism sought to 
unite realism and nominalism through the conception of 
mind, or an individual substance whose meanings may pos- 
sess universal validity. Though this dispute was of funda- 
mental importance throughout the mediaeval period, the 
issues involved have now been restated. Realism in the old 
sense will, if held, come within the scope of the broader 
epistemological realism defined above. Nominalism is cov- 
ered by empirical tendencies, and conceptualism by modern 
idealism. 

The term idealism is sometimes applied to Plato on ac- 
count of his designation of ideas as the ultimate realities. 
This would be a natural use of the term, but in our own 
day it has become inseparably associated with the doctrine 



174 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

quite other than the object, realism is given the 
form known as the representative theory. This 
theory is due to a radical distinction between the 
inner world of consciousness and the outer world of 
things, whereby in knowledge the outer object re- 
quires a substitute that is qualified to belong to 
the inner world. Where, on the other hand, no 
specific and exclusive nature is attributed to the 
inner world, realism may flourish without the rep- 
resentative theory. In such a case the object would 
be regarded as itself capable of entering into any 
number of individual experiences or of remaining 
outside them all, and without on either account for- 
feiting its identity. This view was taken for 
granted by Plato, but is elaborately defended in 
our own day. During the intervening period 
epistemology has been largely occupied with diffi- 
culties inherent in the representative theory, and 

which attributes to being a dependence upon the activity 
of mind. It is of the utmost importance to keep these two 
meanings clear. In the preferred sense Plato is a realist, 
and so opposed to idealism. 

The term idealism is further confused on account of its 
employment in literature and common speech to denote 
the control of ideals. Although this is a kindred meaning, 
the student of philosophy will gain little or no help from it, 
and will avoid confusion if he distinguishes the term in its 
technical use and permits it in that capacity to acquire an 
independent meaning. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 175 

from that discussion there has emerged the theory 
of idealism, 17 the great rival theory to that of 
realism. 

§ 70. The representative theory contains at 
least one obvious difficulty. If the thinker be 
The Relation confined to his ideas, and if the reality 

of Knowledge 

to its object be at the same time beyond these ideas, 

According to 

idealism. how can he ever verify their report ? 
Indeed, what can it mean that an idea should be 
true of that which belongs to a wholly different 
category? How under such circumstances can 
that which is a part of the idea be attributed 
with any certainty to the object? Once grant 
that you know only your ideas, and the object 
reduces to an unknown x, which you retain to 
account for the outward pointing or reference of 
the ideas, but which is not missed if neglected. 
The obvious though radical theory of idealism is 
almost inevitably the next step. Why assume 
that there is any object other than the state of 
mind, since all positive content belongs to that 
realm? The eighteenth century English philos- 
opher, Bishop Berkeley, was accused by his con- 
temporaries of wilful eccentricity, and even mad- 
ness, for his boldness in accepting this argument 
and drawing this conclusion: 

17 See note, p. 173. 



176 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

"The table I write on I say exists; that is, I see and 
feel it: and if I were out of my study I should say it 
existed; meaning thereby that if I was in my study I 
might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does 
perceive it. There was an odor — that is, it was smelt; 
there was a sound — that is, it was heard; a color or 
figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is 
all that I can understand by these and the like expres- 
sions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence 
of unthinking things, without any relation to their being 
perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their 
esse is percipi ; nor is it possible that they should have 
any existence out of the minds or thinking thing which 
perceives them." 18 

§ 71. In this paragraph Berkeley maintains 
that it is essential to things, or at any rate to their 
Phenomenal- qualities, that they be perceived. This 
ism and ltUa " principle when expressed as an episte- 
PanpsycMsm. m0 ] gi ca i or metaphysical generaliza- 
tion, is called phenomenalism. But in another 
phase of his thought Berkeley emphasizes the 
perceiver, or spirit. The theory which maintains 
that the only real substances are these active selves, 
with their powers and their states, has been called 
somewhat vaguely by the name of spiritualism. 19 
Philosophically it shows a strong tendency to de- 

18 Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I, 
Fraser's edition, p. 259. 

19 To be distinguished from the religious sect which bears 
the same name. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 177 

velop into either panpsychism or transcendental- 
ism. The former is radically empirical. Its 
classic representative is the German pessimist 
Schopenhauer, who denned reality in terms of will 
because that term signified to him most eloquently 
the directly felt nature of the self. This imme- 
diate revelation of the true inwardness of being 
serves as the key to an " intuitive interpretation " 
of the gradations of nature, and will finally awaken 
a sense of the presence of the universal Will. 

§ 72. Transcendentalism, or absolute idealism, 
on the other hand, emphasizes the rational activity, 
Transcenden- rather than the bare subjectivity, of the 
Absolute 1 se tf- ^ ie term " transcendental " has 
idealism. become associated with this type of 
idealism through Kant, whose favorite form of 
argument, the " transcendental deduction," was an 
analysis of experience with a view to discovering 
the categories, or formal principles of thought, 
implied in its meaning. From the Kantian 
method arose the conception of a standard or abso- 
lute mind for the standard experience. This mind 
is transcendental not in the sense of being alien, 
but in the sense of exceeding the human mind in 
the direction of what this means and strives to be. 
It is the ideal or normal mind, in which the true 



178 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

reality is contained, with all the chaos of finite 
experience compounded and redeemed. There is 
no being hut the absolute, the one all-inclusive 
spiritual life, in whom all things are inherent, and 
whose perfection is the virtual implication of all 
purposive activities. 

" God's life . . . sees the one plan fulfilled 
through all the manifold lives, the single consciousness 
winning its purpose by virtue of all the ideas, of all the 
individual selves, and of all the lives. No finite view is 
wholly illusory. Every finite intent taken precisely in 
its wholeness is fulfilled in the Absolute. The least life 
is not neglected, the most fleeting act is a recognized 
part of the world's meaning. You are for the divine 
view all that you know yourself at this instant to be. 
But you are also infinitely more. The preciousness of 
your present purposes to yourself is only a hint of that 
preciousness which in the end links their meaning to the 
entire realm of Being." 20 

The fruitfulness of the philosopher's reflective 
doubt concerning his own powers is now evident. 
Problems are raised which are not merely urgent 
in themselves, but which present wholly new alter- 
natives to the metaphysician. Rationalism and 
empiricism, realism and idealism, are doctrines 
which, though springing from the epistemological 
query concerning the possibility of knowledge, may 

20 Quoted from Professor Josiah Royce's The World and 
the Individual, First Series, pp. 426-427. 



METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY 179 

determine an entire philosophical system. They 
bear upon every question of metaphysics, whether 
the fundamental conception of being, or the prob- 
lems of the world's unity, origin, and significance 
for human life. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND THE PROBLEMS OF 
RELIGION 

§ 73. There are three sets of problems whose 
general philosophical importance depends upon the 
The Normative pl &ce which metaphysics assigns to the 
human critical faculties. Man passes 
judgment upon that which claims to be true, beau- 
tiful, or good, thus referring to ideals and stand- 
ards that define these values. Attempts to make 
these ideals explicit, and to formulate principles 
which regulate their attainment, have resulted in 
the development of the three so-called normative 
sciences: logic, wsthetics, and ethics. These sci- 
ences are said to owe their origin to the Socratic 
method, and it is indeed certain that their prob- 
lem is closely related to the general rationalistic 
attitude. 1 In Plato's dialogue, " Protagoras," 
one may observe the manner of the inception 
of both ethics and logic. The question at issue 
between Socrates and the master sophist Pro- 

1 Cf. § 68. 
180 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 181 

tagoras, is concerning the possibility of teach- 
ing virtue. Protagoras conducts his side of the 
discussion with the customary rhetorical flourish, 
expounding in set speeches the tradition and usage 
in which such a possibility is accepted. Socrates, 
on the other hand, conceives the issue quite differ- 
ently. One can neither affirm nor deny anything 
of virtue unless one knows what is meant by it. 
Even the possession of such a meaning was scarcely 
recognized by Protagoras, who was led by Soc- 
rates's questions to attribute to the various vir- 
tues an external grouping analogous to that of the 
parts of the face. But Socrates shows that since 
justice, temperance, courage, and the like, are ad- 
mittedly similar in that they are all virtues, they 
must have in common some essence, which is vir- 
tue in general. This he seeks to define in the 
terms, virtue is knowledge. The interest which 
Socrates here shows in the reduction of the ordi- 
nary moral judgments to a system centering in 
some single fundamental principle, is the ethical 
interest. But this is at the same time a particu- 
lar application of the general rationalistic method 
of definition, and of the general rationalistic pos- 
tulate that one knows nothing until one can form 
unitary and determinate conceptions. The recog- 



182 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

nition which Socrates thus gives to criteria of 
knowledge is an expression of the logical interest. 
In a certain sense, indeed, the whole labor of Soc- 
rates was in the cause of the logical interest. For 
he sought to demonstrate that belief is not neces- 
sarily knowledge; that belief may or may not be 
true. In order that it shall be true, and con- 
stitute knowledge, it must be well-grounded, and 
accompanied by an understanding of its object. 
Socrates thus set the problem of logic, the discov- 
ery, namely, of those characters by virtue of the 
possession of which belief is knowledge. 

§ 74. Logic deals with the ground of belief, and 
thus distinguishes itself from the psychological ac- 
TheAffiiia- count of the elements of the believing 

tions 

of Logic. state. 2 But it is not possible sharply 
to sunder psychology and logic. This is due to 
the fact that the general principles which make 
belief true, may be regarded quite independently 
of this fact. They then become the most general 
truth, belonging to the absolute, archetypal realm, 
or to the mind of God. 3 When the general prin- 
ciples of certainty are so regarded, logic can be 

2 The Socratic distinction between the logical and the 
psychological treatment of belief finds its best expression in 
Plato's Gorgias, especially, 454, 455. Cf. also § 29. 

3 Thus, e. g. Hegel. See § 179. Cf. also §§199, 200. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 183 

distinguished from metaphysics only by adding to 
the study of the general principles themselves, 
the study of the special conditions (mainly psy- 
chological) under which they may be realized 
among men. In the history of human thought the 
name of logic belongs to the study of this attain- 
ment of truth, as the terms aesthetics and ethics 
belong to the studies of the attainment of beauty 
and goodness. 4 It is evident that logic will 
have a peculiar importance for the rationalist. 
For the empiricist, proposing to report upon 
things as they are given, will tend on the whole to 
maintain that knowledge has no properties save 
those which are given to it by its special subject- 
matter. One cannot, in short, define any absolute 
relationship between the normative sciences and 
the other branches of philosophy. 

§ 75. Logic is the formulation, as independently 
as possible of special subject-matter, of that which 
Logic Deals conditions truth in belief. Since logic 

with the Most 

General con- is concerned with truth only in so far 

ditions of . . 

Truth in Belief, as it is predicated of belief, and since 
belief in so far as true is knowledge, logic can be 
defined as the formulation of the most general 
principles of knowledge. The principles so for- 

4 Cf . § 84. 



184 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

mulated would be those virtually used to justify 
belief or to disprove the imputation of error. 

§ 76. What is called formal logic is animated 
with the hope of extracting these formulations 
The Parts of directly from an analysis of the pro- 
DefinTtion° glC cedure of thought. The most general 
SftenS^d lo S ical Principles which have appeared 
observation. in the Historical development of formal 
logic are definition, self-evidence, inference, and 
observation. Each of these has been given special 
study, and each has given rise to special issues. 

Definition has to do with the formation of con- 
cepts, or determinate and unequivocal meanings. 
The universality of such concepts, and their conse- 
quent relation to particular things, was, as we have 
seen, investigated at a very early date, and gave 
rise to the great realistic-nominalistic controversy. 5 
A large part of the logical discussion in the Pla- 
tonic dialogues is an outgrowth of the earlier 
" eristic," a form of disputation in favor with the 
sophists, and consisting in the adroit use of am- 
biguity. 6 It is natural that in its first conscious 
self-criticism thought should discover the need of 
definite terms. The perpetual importance of defi- 

5 See § 69, note. 

8 The reader will find a good illustration of eristic in Plato's 
Euthydemus, 275. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 185 

nition has been largely due to the great prestige in 
modern philosophy of the method of geometry, 
which was regarded by Descartes and Spinoza as 
the model for systems of necessary truth. 

Self-evidence is the principle according to which 
conviction of truth follows directly from an under- 
standing of meaning. In the practice of his in- 
tellectual midwifery, Socrates presupposed that 
thought is capable of bringing forth its own cer- 
tainties. And rationalism has at all times re- 
garded truth as ultimately accredited by internal 
marks recognizable by reason. Such truth ar- 
rived at antecedent to acquaintance with instances 
is called a priori, as distinguished from a posteriori 
knowledge, or observation after the fact. There 
can be no principles of self -evidence, but logicians 
have always been more or less concerned with the 
enumeration of alleged self-evident principles, 
notably those of contradiction and identity. A 
philosophical interest in the mathematical method 
has led to a logical study of axioms, but with a 
view rather to their fruitfulness than their intrin- 
sic truth. Indeed, the interest in self-evident truth 
has always been subordinate to the interest in sys- 
tematic truth, and the discovery of first principles 
most commonly serves to determine the relative 



186 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

priority of definite concepts, or the correct point 
of departure for a series of inferences. 

The greater part of the famous Aristotelian 
logic consists in a study of inference, or the 
derivation of new knowledge from old knowledge. 
Aristotle sought to set down and classify every 
method of advancing from premises. The most 
important form of inference which he defined was 
the syllogism, a scheme of reasoning to a conclu- 
sion by means of two premises having one term in 
common. From the premises " all men are mor- 
tal " and " Socrates is a man/' one may conclude 
that " Socrates is mortal." This is an instance 
not only of the syllogism in general, hut of its 
most important " mood/' the subsumption of a 
particular case under a general rule. Since the 
decline of Aristotle's influence in philosophy there 
has been a notable decrease of interest in the dif- 
ferent forms of inference ; though its fundamental 
importance as the very bone and sinew of reason- 
ing or deductive thinking has never been chal- 
lenged. Its loss of preeminence is in part due to 
the growth of empiricism, stimulated by the writ- 
ings of Lord Bacon in the seventeenth century, 
and fostered by the subsequent development of ex- 
perimental science. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 187 

Observation is the fundamental logical prin- 
ciple of empiricism. For a radical empiricism, 
knowledge would consist of descriptive generaliza- 
tions based upon the summation of instances. 
That branch of logic which deals with the advance 
from individual instances to general principles, is 
called inductive logic. It has resulted in the an- 
nouncement of canons of accuracy and freedom 
from preconception, and in the methodological 
study of hypothesis, experiment, and verification. 
Rules for observation directed to the end of discov- 
ering causes, constitute the most famous part of 
the epoch-making logic of <T. S. Mills. 7 

§ 77. There are two significant tendencies in 
contemporary logic. Theories of the judgment 
Present have arisen in the course of an attempt 

Theory of ' to define the least complexity that must 

the Judgment, j^ p regen £ j n orc [ er that thought shall 

come within the range of truth and error. It is 
evident that no one either knows or is in error 
until he takes some attitude which lays claim to 
knowledge. Denoting by the term judgment this 
minimum of complexity in knowledge, an impor- 
tant question arises as to the sense in which the 

7 The reader can find these rules, and the detail of the 
traditional formal logic, in any elementary text-book, such 
as, e. g., Jevons: Elements of Logic. 



188 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

judgment involves the subject, predicate, and 
copula that are commonly present in its proposi- 
tional form. 

§ 78. But a more important logical develop- 
ment has been due to the recent analysis of definite 
Priority of accredited systems of knowledge. The 
Concepts. study of the fundamental conceptions of 
mathematics and mechanics, together with an ex- 
amination of the systematic structure of these sci- 
ences, furnishes the most notable cases. There are 
two senses in which such studies may be regarded 
as logical. In the first place, in so far as they 
bring to light the inner coherence of any body of 
truth, the kind of evidence upon which it rests, 
and the type of formal perfection which it seeks, 
they differ from formal logic only in that they 
derive their criteria from cases, rather than from 
the direct analysis of the procedure of thought. 
And since formal logic must itself make experi- 
ments, this difference is not a radical one. The 
study of cases tends chiefly to enrich methodology, 
or the knowledge of the special criteria of special 
sciences. In the second place, such studies serve 
to define the relatively few simple truths which 
are common to the relatively many complex truths. 
A study of the foundations of arithmetic reveals 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 189 

more elementary conceptions, such as class and 
order, that must be employed in the very definition 
of number itself, and so are implied in every 
numerical calculation. It appears similarly that 
the axioms of geometry are special axioms which 
involve the acceptance of more general axioms or 
indefinables. 8 Logic in this sense, then, is the 
enumeration of conceptions and principles in the 
order of their indispensableness to knowledge. 
And while it must be observed that the most gen- 
eral conceptions and principles of knowledge are 
not necessarily those most significant for the exis- 
tent world, nevertheless the careful analysis which 
such an enumeration involves is scarcely less fruit- 
ful for metaphysics than for logic. 

§ 79. Esthetics is the formulation, as inde- 
pendently as possible of special subject-matter, 
Aesthetics of that which conditions beauty. As 

Deals with the -, -, <. , . -, , c 

Most General logic commonly refers to a judgment of 
Beauty.° DS ° truth, so aesthetics at any rate refers to 
and^Formahs- a judgment implied in appreciation, 
tic Tendencies. j3 ut wll ile it is generally admitted that 
truth itself is by no means limited to the form of 
the judgment, the contrary is frequently main- 

8 What is called "the algebra of logic" seeks to obtain 
an unequivocal symbolic expression for these truths. 



190 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tained with reference to beauty. The aphorism, 
De gusiibus non est disputandum, expresses a com- 
mon opinion to the effect that beauty is not a prop- 
erty belonging to the object of which it is predi- 
cated, but a property generated by the appreciative 
consciousness. According to this opinion there can 
be no beauty except in the case of an object's pres- 
ence in an individual experience. Investigators 
must of necessity refuse to leave individual caprice 
in complete possession of the field, but they have in 
many cases occupied themselves entirely with the 
state of aesthetic enjoyment in the hope of discov- 
ering its constant factors. The opposing tendency 
defines certain formal characters which the beau- 
tiful object must possess. Evidently the latter 
school will attribute a more profound philosophi- 
cal importance to the conception of beauty, since 
for them it is a principle that obtains in the world 
of being. This was the first notable contention, 
that of Plato. But even with the emphasis laid 
upon the subjective aspect of the a?sthetic experi- 
ence, great metaphysical importance may be at- 
tached to it, where, as in the case of the German 
Romanticists, reality is deliberately construed as 
a spiritual life which is to be appreciated rather 
than understood. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 191 

As in the case of logic, a strong impulse has 
manifested itself in aesthetics to deal with groups 
of objects that lie within its province, rather than 
directly with its concepts and principles. The 
first special treatise on aesthetics, the " Poetics " 
of Aristotle, belongs to this type of inquiry, as 
does all criticism of art in so far as it aims at the 
formulation of general principles. 

§ 80. Ethics, the oldest and most popular of the 
normative sciences, is the formulation, as indepen^ 
Ethics Deals dently as possible of special subject-mat- 

with the Most / r n t 7 • 7 7 • / • 7 

General Con- ^ er > °t t' m '' which Conditions goodness 

Moral* ° f °f conduct. Ethics is commonly con- 
Goodness. cerned with goodness only in so far as 
it is predicated of conduct, or of character, which 
is a more or less permanent disposition to conduct. 
Since conduct, in so far as good, is said to consti- 
tute moral goodness, ethics may be defined as the 
formulation of the general principles of morality. 
The principles so formulated would be those vir- 
tually employed to justify conduct, or to disprove 
the imputation of immorality. 

§ 81. The student of this science is confronted 
with a very considerable diversity of method and 
conceptions differentiation of problems. The ear- 

of the Good. 

Hedonism. liest and most profound opposition of 



192 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

doctrine in ethics arose from the differences of in- 
terpretation of which the teaching of Socrates is 
capable. His doctrine is, as we have seen, ver- 
bally expressed in the proposition, virtue is knowl- 
edge. Socrates was primarily concerned to show 
that there is no real living without an understand- 
ing of the significance of life. To live well is to 
know the end of life, the good of it all, and to 
govern action with reference to that end. Virtue 
is therefore the practical wisdom that enables one 
to live consistently with his real intention. But 
what is the real intention, the end or good of life ? 
In the " Protagoras," where Plato represents Soc- 
rates as expounding his position, virtue is inter- 
preted to mean prudence, or foresight of pleasur- 
able and painful consequences. He who knows, 
possesses all virtue in that he is qualified to adapt 
himself to the real situation and to gain the end 
of pleasure. All men, indeed, seek pleasure, but 
only virtuous men seek it wisely and well. 

"And do you, Protagoras, like the rest of the world, 
call some pleasant things evil and some painful things 
good ? — for I am rather disposed to say that things are 
good in as far as they are pleasant, if they have no con- 
sequences of another sort, and in as far as they are painful 
they are bad." 9 

8 Plato: Protagoras, 351. Translation by Jowett. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 193 

According to this view painful things are good 
only when they lead eventually to pleasure, and 
pleasant things evil only when their painful con- 
sequences outweigh their pleasantness. Hence 
moral differences reduce to differences of skill in 
the universal quest for pleasure, and sensible grati- 
fication is the ultimate standard of moral value. 
This ancient doctrine, known as hedonism, express- 
ing as it does a part of life that will not suffer 
itself for long to be denied, is one of the great 
perennial tendencies of ethical thought. In the 
course of many centuries it has passed through a 
number of phases, varying its conception of pleas- 
ure from the tranquillity of the Avise man to the 
sensuous titillations of the sybarite, and from the 
individualism of the latter to the universalism of 
the humanitarian. But in every case it shows a 
respect for the natural man, praising morality for 
its disciplinary and instrumental value in the ser- 
vice of such human wants as are the outgrowth of 
the animal instinct of self-preservation. 

§ 82. But if a man's life be regarded as a truer 
representation of his ideals than is his spoken 
Rationalism, theory, there is little to identify Soc- 
rates with the hedonists. At the conclusion of the 
defence of his own life, which Plato puts into his 



194 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

mouth in the well-known " Apology," he speaks 
thus: 

" When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, my 
friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble 
them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about 
riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they 
pretend to be something when they are really nothing, — 
then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring 
about that for which they ought to care, and thinking 
that they are something when they are really nothing." 10 

It is plain that the man Socrates cared little for 
the pleasurable or painful consequences of his acts, 
provided they were worthy of the high calling of 
human nature. A man's virtue would now seem 
to possess an intrinsic nobility. If knowledge be 
virtue, then on this basis it must be because knowl- 
edge is itself excellent. Virtue as knowledge 
contributes to the good by constituting it. We 
meet here with the rationalistic strain in ethics. 
It praises conduct for the inherent worth which it 
may possess if it express that reason which the 
Stoics called " the ruling part." The riches of 
wisdom consist for the hedonist in their purchase 
of pleasure. For the rationalist, on the other 
hand, wisdom is not coin, but itself the very sub- 
stance of value. 

§ 83. Rationalism has undergone modifications 
*° Plato: Apology, 41. Translation by Jowett. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 195 

even more significant than those of hedonism, 
Eudsmonism an d involving at least one radically 
SgorSTnd new g rou P of conceptions. Among the 
intuitionism. Greeks rationalism and hedonism alike 

are eudcemonistic. They aim to portray the ful- 
ness of life that makes " the happy man." In the 
ethics of Aristotle, whose synthetic mind weaves 
together these different strands, the Greek ideal 
finds its most complete expression as " the high- 
minded man," with all his powers and trappings. 
But the great spiritual transformation which ac- 
companied the decline of Greek culture and the 
rise of Christianity, brought with it a new moral 
sensibility, which finds in man no virtue of him- 
self, but only through the grace of God. 

"And the virtues themselves," says St. Augustine, 
" if they bear no relation to God, are in truth vices rather 
than virtues; for although they are regarded by many 
as truly moral when they are desired as ends in them- 
selves and not for the sake of something else, they are, 
nevertheless, inflated and arrogant, and therefore not to 
be viewed as virtues but as vices." 11 

The new ideal is that of renunciation, obedience, 

and resignation. Ethically this expresses itself in 

pietism. Virtue is good neither in itself nor on 

account of its consequences, but because it is con- 

11 Quoted by Paulsen in his System of Ethics. Transla- 
tion by Thilly, p. 69. 



196 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

f ormable to the will of God. The extreme inward- 
ness of this ideal is characteristic of an age that 
despaired of attainment, whether of pleasure or 
knowledge. To all, even the persecuted, it is per- 
mitted to obey, and so gain entrance into the 
kingdom of the children of God. But as every 
special study tends to rely upon its own concep- 
tions, pietism, involving as it does a relation to 
God, is replaced by rigorism and intuitionism. 
The former doctrine defines virtue in terms of the 
inner attitude which it expresses. It must be done 
in the spirit of dutifulness, because one ought, and 
through sheer respect for the law which one's 
moral nature affirms. Intuitionism has attempted 
to deal with the source of the moral law by defin- 
ing conscience as a special faculty or sense, quali- 
fied to pass directly upon moral questions, and 
deserving of implicit obediences. It is character- 
istic of this whole tendency to look for the spring 
of virtuous living, not in a good which such living 
obtains, but in a law to which its owes obedience. 
§ 84. This third general ethical tendency has 
thus been of the greatest importance in emphasiz- 
Duty and ing the consciousness of duty, and has 
Ethics and brought both hedonism and rationalism 
etap ysics. ^ o & recognition of its fundamental im- 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 197 

portance. Ethics must deal not only with the 
moral ideal, but also with the ground of its appeal 
to the individual, and his obligation to pursue it. 
In connection with this recognition of moral re- 
sponsibility, the problem of human freedom has 
come to be regarded in the light of an inevitable 
point of contact between ethics and metaphysics. 
That which is absolutely binding upon the human 
will can be determined only in view of some 
theory of its ultimate nature. On this account 
the rationalistic and hedonistic motives are no 
longer abstractly sundered, as in the days of the 
Stoics and Epicureans, but tend to be absorbed in 
broader philosophical tendencies. Hedonism ap- 
pears as the sequel to naturalism ; or, more rarely, 
as part of a theistic system whose morality is 
divine legislation enforced by an appeal to motives 
of pleasure and pain. Rationalism, on the other 
hand, tends to be absorbed in rationalistic or ideal- 
istic philosophies, where man's rational nature is 
construed as his bond of kinship with the universe. 
Ethics has exhibited from the beginning a ten- 
dency to universalize its conceptions and take the 
central place in metaphysics. Thus with Plato 
good conduct was but a special case of goodness, 
the good being the most general principle of 



198 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

reality. 12 In modern times Fichte and his school 
have founded an ethical metaphysics upon the con- 
ception of duty. 13 In these cases ethics can be dis- 
tinguished from metaphysics only by adding to 
the study of the good or of duty, a study of the 
special physical, psychological, and social condi- 
tions under which goodness and dutifulness may 
obtain in human life. It is possible to attach the 
name of ethics, and we have seen the same to be 
true of logic, either to a realm of ideal truth or 
to that realm wherein the ideal is realized in 
humanity. 

§ 85. A systematic study of ethics requires that 
the virtues, or types of moral practice, shall be 
The virtues, interpreted in the light of the central 

Customs, and 

institutions, conception of good, or of conscience. 
Justice, temperance, wisdom, and courage were 
praised by the Greeks. Christianity added self- 
sacrifice, humility, purity, and benevolence. These 
and other virtues have been defined, justified, and 
co-ordinated with the aid of a standard of moral 
value or a canon of duty. 

There is in modern ethics a pronounced ten- 
dency, parallel to those already noted in logic and 
aesthetics, to study such phenomena belonging to 
12 Cf. § 160. 13 Cf. § 177. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 199 

its field as have become historically established. 
A very considerable investigation of custom, insti- 
tutions, and other social forces has led to a con- 
tact of ethics with anthropology and sociology 
scarcely less significant than that with metaphysics. 

§ 86. In that part of his philosophy in which 
he deals with faith, the great German philosopher 
The Problems Kant mentions God, Freedom, and Im- 

of Religion. 

The special mortality as the three pre-eminent re- 

Interests of 

Faith. ligious interests. Religion, as we have 

seen, sets up a social relationship between man 
and that massive drift of things which determines 
his destiny. Of the two terms of this relation, 
God signifies the latter, while freedom and immor- 
tality are prerogatives which religion bestows upon 
the former. Man, viewed from the stand-point of 
religion as an object of special interest to the uni- 
verse, is said to have a soul ; and by virtue of this 
soul he is said to be free and immortal, when 
thought of as having a life in certain senses inde- 
pendent of its immediate natural environment. 
The attempt to make this faith theoretically in- 
telligible has led to the philosophical disciplines 
known as theology and psychology. 141 

14 Concerning the duty of philosophy to religion in these 



200 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

§ 87. Theology, as a branch of philosophy, deals 
with the proof and the nature of God. Since 
Theology " ^od " is not primarily a theoretical 
Na?re W and the conce P tion > tb e proof of God is not 
Proof of God. properly a philosophical problem. His- 
torically, this task has been assumed as a legacy 
from Christian apologetics ; and it has involved, 
at any rate so far as European philosophy is con- 
cerned, the definition of ultimate being in such 
spiritual terms as make possible the relation with 
man postulated in Christianity. For this it has 
been regarded as sufficient to ascribe to the world an 
underlying unity capable of bearing the predicates 
of perfection, omnipotence, and omniscience. Each 
proof of God has defined him pre-eminently in 
terms of some one of these his attributes. 

§ 88. The ontological proof of God held the 
foremost place in philosophy's contribution to 
The Ontoiog- Christianity up to the eighteenth cen- 

ical Proof of 

God. tury. This proof infers the existence 

from the ideal of God, and so approaches the nat- 
ure of God through the attribute of perfection. 
It owes the form in which it was accepted in the 
Middle Ages and Renaissance to St. Anselm, 

matters, Cf. Descartes: Meditations, Dedication. Transla- 
tion by Veitch, p. 81. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 201 

Archbishop of Canterbury at the close of the 
eleventh century. He argued from the idea of a 
most perfect being to its existence, on the ground 
that non-existence, or existence only in idea, would 
contradict its perfection. It is evident that the 
force of this argument depends upon the necessity 
of the idea of God. The argument was accepted 
in Scholastic Philosophy 15 largely because of the 
virtual acceptance of this necessity. Mediaeval 
thought was under the dominance of the philosoph- 
ical ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and through them 
rationalism had come to be the unquestioned start- 
ing-point for all thought. For Plato reality and 
rationality meant one and the same thing, so that 
the ultimate reality was the highest principle of 
rationality, which he conceived to be the idea of 
the good. In the case of Aristotle the ideal 
of rationality was conceived to determine the 
course of the cosmical evolution as its immanent 
final cause. But in itself it was beyond the world, 
or transcendent. For Plato perfection itself is 
reality, whereas for Aristotle perfection determines 
the hierarchical order of natural substances. The 
latter theory, more suitable to the uses of Chris- 

15 The school-philosophy that flourished from the eleventh 
to the fifteenth century, under the authority of the church. 



202 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tianity, because it distinguished between God and 
the world, was incorporated into the great school 
systems. But both theories contain the essence of 
the ontological proof of God. In thought one seeks 
the perfect truth, and posits it as at once the cul- 
mination of insight and the meaning of life. The 
ideal of God is therefore a necessary idea, because 
implied in all the effort of thought as the object 
capable of finally satisfying it. St. Anselm adds 
little to the force of this argument, and does much 
to obscure its real significance. 

In stating the ontological argument the term 
perfection has been expressly emphasized, because 
it may be taken to embrace both truth and good- 
ness. Owing to a habit of thought, due in the 
main to Plato, it was long customary to regard 
degrees of truth and goodness as interchangeable, 
and as equivalent to degrees of reality. The ens 
realissimum was in its completeness the highest 
object both of the faculty of cognition and of the 
moral will. But even in the scholastic period 
these two different aspects of the ideal were clearly 
recognized, and led to sharply divergent tenden- 
cies. More recently they have been divided and 
embodied in separate arguments. The epistemo- 
logical argument defines God in terms of that abso- 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 203 

lute truth which is referred to in every judgment. 
Under the influence of idealism this absolute truth 
has taken the form of a universal mind, or all- 
embracing standard experience, called more briefly 
the absolute. The ethical argument, on the other 
hand, conceives God as the perfect goodness im- 
plied in the moral struggle, or the power through 
which goodness is made to triumph in the universe 
to the justification of moral faith. While the 
former of these arguments identifies God with 
being, the latter defines God in terms of the intent 
or outcome of being. Thus, while the epistemo- 
logical argument does not distinguish God and the 
world, the latter does so, assuming that independent 
reality can be attributed to the stages of a process 
and to the purpose that dominates it. 

§ 89. The cosmological proof of God approaches 
him through the attribute of creative omnipotence. 
The Cosmo- The common principle of causal ex- 

logical Proof 

of God. planation refers the origin of natural 

events to similar antecedent events. But there 
must be some first cause from which the whole 
series is derived, a cause which is ultimate, suffi- 
cient to itself, and the responsible author of the 
world. Because God's function as creator was a 
part of the Christian teaching, and because expla- 



204 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

nation by causes is habitual with common sense, 
this argument has had great vogue. But in phi- 
losophy it has declined in importance, chiefly be- 
cause it has been absorbed in arguments which deal 
with the kind of causality proper to a first cause 
or world^ound. The argument that follows is 
a case in point. 

§ 90. The teleological proof argues that the 
world can owe its origin only to an intelligent first 

The Teieoiogi- cause. The evidence for this is f ur- 
eal Proof of 

God. nished by the cunning contrivances and 

beneficent adaptations of nature. These could not 
have come about through chance or the working 
of mechanical forces, but only through the fore- 
sight of a rational will. This argument originally 
infers God from the character of nature and his- 
tory; and the extension of mechanical principles 
to organic and social phenomena, especially as 
stimulated by Darwin's principle of natural selec- 
tion, has tended greatly to diminish its importance. 
When, on the other hand, for nature and history 
there are substituted the intellectual and moral 
activities themselves, and the inference is made to 
the ideal which they imply, the teleological argu- 
ment merges into the ontological. But the old- 
fashioned statement of it remains in the form of 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 205 

religious faith, and in this capacity it has had the 
approval even of Hume and Kant, the philosophers 
who have contributed most forcibly to its over- 
throw as a demonstration of God. They agree 
that the acknowledgment of God in nature and 
history is the sequel to a theistic belief, and an in- 
evitable attitude on the part of the religious con- 
sciousness. 

§ 91. Another group of ideas belonging to philo- 
sophical theology consists of three generalizations 
God and respecting God's relation to the world, 
the World. k nown as theism, pantheism, and deism. 

Theism and ' l ' 

Pantheism. Although, theoretically, these are corol- 
laries of the different arguments for God, two of 
them, theism and pantheism, owe their importance 
to their rivalry as religious tendencies. Theism 
emphasizes that attitude to God which recognizes 
in him an historical personage, in some sense dis- 
tinct from both the world and man, which are his 
works and yet stand in an external relationship 
to him. It expresses the spirit of ethical and 
monotheistic religion, and is therefore the natural 
belief of the Christian. Pantheism appears in 
primitive religion as an animistic or polytheistic 
sense of the presence of a divine principle diffused 
throughout nature. But it figures most notably 



206 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

in the history of religions, in the highly reflective 
Brahmanism of India. In sharp opposition to 
Christianity, this religion preaches the indivisible 
unity of the world and the illusoriness of the in- 
dividual's sense of his own independent reality. 
In spite of the fact that such a doctrine is alien 
to the spirit of Christianity, it enters into Chris- 
tian theology through the influence of philosophy. 
The theoretical idea of God tends, as we have seen, 
to the identification of him with the world as its 
most real principle. Or it bestows upon him a 
nature so logical and formal, and so far removed 
from the characters of humanity, as to forbid his 
entering into personal or social relations. Such 
reflections concerning God find their religious ex- 
pression in a mystical sense of unity, which has in 
many cases either entirely replaced or profoundly 
modified the theistic strain in Christianity. In 
current philosophy pantheism appears in the epis- 
temological argument which identifies God with 
being; while the chief bulwark of theism is the 
ethical argument, with its provision for a distinc- 
tion between the actual world and ideal principle 
of evolution. 

§ 92. While theism and pantheism appear to be 
permanent phases in the philosophy of religion, 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 207 

deism is the peculiar product of the eighteenth cen- 
Deism, tury. It is based upon a repudia- 

tion of supernaturalism and " enthusiasm," on the 
one hand, and a literal acceptance of the cosmo- 
logical and teleological proofs on the other. Re- 
ligions, like all else, were required, in this epoch 
of clear thinking, to submit to the canons of experi- 
mental observation and practical common sense. 
These authorize only a natural religion, the ac- 
knowledgment in pious living of a God who, hav- 
ing contrived this natural world, has given it over 
to the rule, not of priests and prophets, but of 
natural law. The artificiality of its conception of 
God, and the calculating spirit of its piety, make 
deism a much less genuine expression of the re- 
ligious experience than either the moral chivalry 
of theism or the intellectual and mystical exalta- 
tion of pantheism. 

§ 93. The systematic development of philosophy 
leads to the inclusion of conceptions of God within 
Metaphysics the problem of metaphysics, and the 
and Theology, subordination of the proof of God to 

the determination of the fundamental principle of 
reality. There will always remain, however, an 
outstanding theological discipline, whose function 
it is to interpret worship, or the living religious 



208 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

attitude, in terms of the theoretical principles of 
philosophy. 

§ 94. Psychology is the theory of the soul. As 
we have already seen, the rise of scepticism directs 
Psychology is attention from the object of thought to 

the Theory of """" 

the Soul. the thinker, and so emphasizes the self as 
a field for theoretical investigation. But the orig- 
inal and the dominating interest in the self is a 
practical one. The precept, <yvw6i aeavrov, has 
its deepest justification in the concern for the 
salvation of one's soul. In primitive and half- 
instinctive belief the self is recognized in practical 
relations. In its animistic phase this belief ad- 
mitted of such relations with all living creatures, 
and extended the conception of life very generally 
to natural processes. Thus in the beginning the 
self was doubtless indistinguishable from the vital 
principle. In the first treatise on psychology, the 
"irepl ^irj^?" of Aristotle, this interpretation 
finds a place in theoretical philosophy. For Aris- 
totle the so ul is the entelechy of the body — that 
function or activity which makes a man of it. 
He recognized, furthermore, three stages in this 
activity : the nutritive, sensitive, and rational souls, 
or the vegetable, animal, and distinctively human 
natures, respectively. The rational soul, in its 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 209 

own proper activity, is man's highest prerogative, 
the soul to be saved. By virtue of it man rises 
above bodily conditions, and lays hold on the 
divine and eternal. But Plato, who, as we have 
seen, was ever ready to grant reality to the ideal 
apart from the circumstances of its particular em- 
bodiment, had already undertaken to demonstrate 
the immortality of the soul on the ground of its 
distinctive nature. 16 According to his way of 
thinking, the soul's essentially moral nature made 
it incapable of destruction through the operation 
of natural causes. It is evident, then, that there 
were already ideas in vogue capable of interpret- 
ing the Christian teaching concerning the exist- 
ence of a soul, or of an inner essence of man capa- 
ble of being made an object of divine interest. 

§ 95. The immediate effect of Christianity was 
to introduce into philosophy as one of its cardinal 
spiritual doctrines the theory of a spiritual being, 

Substance constituting the true self of the indi- 
vidual, and separable from the body. The differ- 
ence recognized in Plato and Aristotle between the 
divine spark and the appetitive and perceptual 
parts of human nature was now emphasized. The 
former (frequently called the " spirit," to distin- 
16 Especially in the Phcedo. 



210 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

guish it from the lower soul) was defined as a 
substance having the attributes of thought and 
will. The fundamental argument for its existence 
was the immediate appeal to self -consciousness ; 
and it was further defined as indestructible on 
the ground of its being utterly discontinuous and 
incommensurable with its material environment. 
This theory survives at the present day in the con- 
ception of pure activity, but on the whole the attri- 
butes of the soul have superseded its substance. 

§ 96. Intellectualism and voluntarism are the 
two rival possibilities of emphasis when the soul is 
intellectualism defined in terms of its known activities. 

and Voluntar- 
ism. Wherever the essence of personality is 

in question, as also occurs in the case of theology, 

thought and will present their respective claims 

to the place of first importance. Intellectualism 

would make will merely the concluding phase of 

thought, while voluntarism would reduce thought 

to one of the interests of a general appetency. It 

is evident that idealistic theories will be much 

concerned with this question of priority. It is 

also true, though less evident, that intellectualism, 

since it emphasizes the general and objective 

features of the mind, tends to subordinate the 

individual to the universal; while voluntarism, 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 211 

emphasizing desire and action, is relatively indi- 
vidualistic, and so, since there are many indi- 
viduals, also pluralistic. 17 

§ 97. The question of the freedom of the will 
furnishes a favorite controversial topic in philos- 
Freedomof °phy. For the interest at stake is no 
Necessitarian- l ess than the individual's responsibility 

ism, Determin- i_£ i /~i j j? i • j 

ism and in- before man and (iod for nis good or 

determinism. ba( j WQT ^ ft be ars alike upon sc i en ce, 

religion, and philosophy, and is at the same time 
a question of most fundamental practical impor- 
tance. But this diffusion of the problem has led 
to so considerable a complication of it that it be- 
comes necessary in outlining it to define two issues. 
In the first place, the concept of freedom is de- 
signed to express generally the distinction between 
man and the rest of nature. To make man in all 
respects the product and creature of his natural 
environment would be to deny freedom and accept 
the radically necessitarian doctrine. The question 
still remains, however, as to the causes which domi- 
nate man. He may be free from nature, and yet 
be ruled by God, or by distinctively spiritual 
causes, such as ideas or character. Where in gen- 
eral the will is regarded as submitting only to a 
17 Schopenhauer is a notable exception. Cf. §§ 135, 138. 



212 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

spiritual causation proper to its own realm, the 
conception is best named determinism; though in 
the tradition of philosophy it is held to be a doc- 
trine of freedom, because contrasted with the 
necessitarianism above denned. There remains 
indeterminism, which attributes to the will a spon- 
taneity that makes possible the direct presence to 
it of genuine alternatives. The issue may here 
coincide with that between intellectualism and 
voluntarism. If, e.g., in God's act of creation, hia 
ideals and standards are prior to his fiat, his con- 
duct is determined; whereas it is free in the radi- 
cal or indeterministic sense if his ideals themselves 
are due to his sheer will. This theory involves at 
a certain point in action the absence of cause. On 
this account the free will is often identified with 
chance, in which case it loses its distinction from 
nature, and we have swung round the circle. 

§ 98. There is similar complexity in the prob- 
lem concerning immortality. Were the extreme 
immortality, claims of naturalism to be established, 

Survival and 

Etemaiism. there would be no ground whatsoever 
upon which to maintain the immortality of man, 
mere dust returning unto dust. The philosophical 
concept of immortality is due to the supposition 
that the quintessence of the individual's nature is 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 213 

divine. 18 But several possibilities are at this 
point open to us. The first would maintain the 
survival after death of a recognizable and discrete 
personality. Another would suppose a preserva- 
tion after death, through being taken up into the 
life of God. Still another, the theory commonly 
maintained on the ground of rationalistic and 
idealistic metaphysics, would deny that immortal- 
ity has to do with life after death, and affirm that 
it signifies the perpetual membership of the human 
individual in a realm of eternity through the truth 
or virtue that is in him. But this interpretation 
evidently leaves open the question of the immor- 
tality of that which is distinctive and personal in 
human nature. 

§ 99. So far we have followed the fortunes only 
of the " spirit " of man. What of that lower soul 
The Natural through which he is identified with the 

Science of 

Psychology, fortunes of his body? When philos- 

Its Problems 

and Method, ophy gradually ceased, in the sixteenth 

and seventeenth centuries, to be " the handmaid of 

religion," there arose a renewed interest in that 

part of human nature lying between the strictly 

18 It is interesting, however, to observe that current spirit- 
ualistic theories maintain a naturalistic theory of immor- 
tality, verifiable, it is alleged, in certain extraordinary 
empirical observations. 



214 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

physiological functions, on the one hand, and 
thought and will on the other. Descartes and 
Spinoza analyzed what they called the " passions/' 
meaning such states of mind as are conditioned 
by a concern for the interests of the body. At a 
later period, certain English philosophers, follow- 
ing Locke, traced the dependence of ideas upon 
the senses. Their method was that of introspec- 
tion, or the direct examination by the individual 
of his own ideas, and for the sake of noting their 
origin and composition from simple factors. The 
lineal descendants of these same English philos- 
ophers defined more carefully the process of asso- 
ciation, whereby the complexity and sequence of 
ideas are brought about, and made certain con- 
jectures as to its dependence upon properties 
and transactions in the physical brain. These are 
the three main philosophical sources of what has 
now grown to be the separate natural science of 
psychology. It will be noted that there are two 
characteristics which all of these studies have in 
common. They deal with the experience of the 
individual as composing his own private history, 
and tend to attribute the specific course which this 
private history takes to bodily conditions. It is 
only recently that these investigations have ac- 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 215 

quired sufficient unity and exclusiveness of aim to 
warrant their being regarded as a special science. 
But such is now so far the case that the psychol- 
ogist of this type pursues his way quite indepen- 
dently of philosophy. It is true his research has 
advanced considerably beyond his understanding 
of its province. But it is generally recognized 
that he must examine those very factors of sub- 
jectivity which the natural scientist otherwise 
seeks to evade, and, furthermore, that he must seek 
to provide for them in nature. He treats the inner 
life in what Locke called " the plain historical 
method," that is to say, instead of interpreting 
and defining its ideas, he analyzes and reports 
upon its content. He would not seek to justify a 
moral judgment, as would ethics, or to criticise 
the cogency of thought, as would logic; but only 
to describe the actual state as he found it. In 
order to make his data commensurable with the 
phenomena of nature, he discovers or defines bod- 
ily conditions for the subjective content which he 
analyzes. His fundamental principle of method 
is the postulate of psycho-physical parallelism, ac- 
cording to which he assumes a state of brain or 
nervous system for every state of mind. But in 
adopting a province and a method the psychologist 






216 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

foregoes finality of truth after the manner of all 
natural science. He deals admittedly with an 
aspect of experience, and his conclusions are no 
more adequate to the nature of the self than they 
are to the nature of outer objects. An admirable 
reference to this abstract division of experience 
occurs in Kulpe's " Introduction to Philosophy " : 

" For the developed consciousness, as for the naive, 
every experience is an unitary whole; and it is only the 
habit of abstract reflection upon experience that makes 
the objective and subjective worlds seem to fall apart 
as originally different forms of existence. Just as a 
plane curve can be represented in analytical geometry 
as the function of two variables, the abscissae and the 
ordinates, without prejudice to the unitary course of the 
curve itself, so the world of human experience may be 
reduced to a subjective and an objective factor, without 
prejudice to its real coherence." 19 

§ 100. The problems of psychology, like those 
of theology, tend to disappear as independent philo- 
Psychoiogy sophical topics. The ultimate nature 

and Philos- 

ophy. of the self will continue to interest phi- 

losophers — more deeply, perhaps, than any aspect 
of experience — but their conception of it will be 
a corollary of their metaphysics and epistemology. 
The remainder of the field of the old philosophical 
psychology, the introspective and experimental 

19 Translation by Pillsbury and Titchener, p. 59. 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 217 

analysis of special states of mind, is already the 
province of a natural science which is becoming 
more and more free from the stand-point and 
method of philosophy. 

§ 101. Reminding ourselves anew that philo- 
sophical problems cannot be treated in isolation 
Transition from one another, we shall hereinafter 

from Classifi- , . •. . . n ..■■ -, 

cation by see ^ to become acquainted with general 
ciTssifkation stand-points that give systematic unity 
by Doctrines. ^ Q fa e issues which have been enumer- 

Naturalism. 

subjectivism. a t e( j. Such stand-points are not clearly 

Absolute L J 

ideaUsm. defined by those who occupy them, 

Absolute 

Realism. and they afford no clear-cut classifica- 

tion of all historical philosophical philosophies. 
But system-making in philosophy is commonly 
due to the moving in an individual mind of 
some most significant idea; and certain of these 
ideas have reappeared so frequently as to define 
more or less clearly marked tendencies, or con- 
tinuous strands, out of which the history of 
thought is forever weaving itself. Such is clearly 
the case with naturalism. From the beginning 
until now there have been men whose philos- 
ophy is a summation of the natural sciences, 
whose entire thought is based upon an acceptance 
of the methods and the fundamental conceptions 



218 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

of these disciplines. This tendency stands in the 
history of thought for the conviction that the vis- 
ible and tangible world which interacts with the 
body is veritable reality. This philosophy is 
realistic and empirical to an extent entirely deter- 
mined by its belief concerning being. But while 
naturalism is only secondarily epistemological, 
subjectivism and absolute idealism have their 
very source in the self-examination and the self- 
criticism of thought. Subjectivism signifies the 
conviction that the knower cannot escape himself. 
If reality is to be kept within the range of possible 
knowledge, it must be defined in terms of the 
processes or states of selves. Absolute idealism 
arises from a union of this epistemological motive 
with a recognition of what are regarded as the 
logical necessities to which reality must submit. 
Reality must be both knowledge and rational 
knowledge; the object, in short, of an absolute 
mind, which shall be at once all-containing and 
systematic. This rationalistic motive was, how- 
ever, not originally associated with an idealistic 
epistemology, but with the common-sense principle 
that being is discovered and not constituted by 
thought. Such an absolute realism is, like natu- 
ralism, primarily metaphysical rather than episte- 



NORMATIVE SCIENCES AND RELIGION 219 

mologieal; but, unlike naturalism, it seeks to de- 
fine reality as a logical or ethical necessity. 

Under these several divisions, then, we shall 
meet once more with the special problems of phi- 
losophy, but this time they will be ranged in an 
order that is determined by some central doctrine. 
They will appear as parts not of the general prob- 
lem of philosophy, but of some definite system of 
philosophy. 



PART III 

SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY 



CHAPTER VIII 



NATURALISM 



§ 102. The meaning conveyed by any philo- 
sophical term consists largely of the distinctions 
The General (which it suggests. Its peculiar qual- 

Meaning of 

Materialism, ity, like the physiognomy of the battle- 
scarred veteran, is a composite of the controversies 
which it has survived. There is, therefore, an 
almost unavoidable confusion attendant upon the 
denomination of any early phase of philosophy as 
materialism. But in the historical beginnings of 
thought, as also in the common-sense of all ages, 
there is at any rate present a very essential strand 
of this theory. The naive habit of mind which, 
in the sixth century before Christ, prompted suc- 
cessive Greek thinkers to define reality in terms 

1 Preliminary Note. — By naturalism is meant that 
system of philosophy which defines the universe in the 
terms of natural science. In its dogmatic phase, wherein it 
maintains that being is corporeal, it is called materialism. 
In its critical phase, wherein it makes the general assertion 
that the natural sciences constitute the only possible knowl- 
edge, whatever be the nature of reality itself, it is called 
positivism, agnosticism, or simply naturalism. 
223 



224 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

of water, air, and fire, is in this respect one with 
that exhibited in Dr. Samuel Johnson's smiting 
the ground with his stick in curt refutation of 
Bishop Berkeley's idea-philosophy. There is a 
theoretical instinct, not accidental or perverse, but 
springing from the very life-preserving equipment 
of the organism, which attributes reality to tangi- 
ble space-filling things encountered by the body. 
For obvious reasons of self-interest the organism 
is first of all endowed with a sense of contact, and 
the more delicate senses enter into its practical 
economy as means of anticipating or avoiding 
contact. From such practical expectations con- 
cerning the proximity of that which may press 
upon, injure, or displace the body, arise the first 
crude judgments of reality. And these are at the 
same time the nucleus of naive philosophy and 
the germinal phase of materialism. 

§ 103. The first philosophical movement among 
the Greeks was a series of attempts to reduce the 
corporeal tangible world to unity, and of these 
Being. ^j le conce pti OI1 offered by Anaximander 

is of marked interest in its bearing upon the de- 
velopment of materialism. This philosopher is 
remarkable for having defined his first principle, 
instead of having chosen it from among the dif- 



NATURALISM 225 

ferent elements already distinguished by common- 
sense. He thought the unity of nature to consist 
in its periodic evolution from and return into 
one infinite sum of material (to aireipov), which, 
much in the manner of the " nebula " of modern 
science, is conceived as both indeterminate in its 
actual state and infinitely rich in its potentiality. 
The conception of matter, the most familiar com- 
monplace of science, begins to be recognizable. It 
has here reached the point of signifying a common 
substance for all tangible things, a substance that 
in its own general and omnipresent nature is with- 
out the special marks that distinguish these tan- 
gible things from one another. And in so far the 
philosophy of Anaximander is materialistic. 

§ 104. But the earliest thinkers are said to be 
hylozoists, rather than strict materialists, because 
Corporeal of their failure to make certain distinc- 

Processes. ,• • ,• ..i ,i 

Hyiozoism and tions in connection with the processes 
echamsm. Q £ ma ^ er# "j^g term hyiozoism unites 

with the conception of the formless material of 
the world (v\rj}, that of an animating power to 
which its formations and transformations are due. 
Hyiozoism itself was not a deliberate synthesis of 
these two conceptions, but a primitive practical 
tendency to universalize the conception of life. 



226 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Such " animism " instinctively associates with an 
object's bulk and hardness a capacity for locomo- 
tion and general initiative. And the material 
principles denned by the philosophers retain this 
vague and comprehensive attribute as a matter 
of course, until it is distinguished and separated 
through attempts to understand it. 

That aspect of natural process which was most 
impressive to Greek minds of the reflective type 
was the alternation of " generation and decay." 
In full accord with his more ancient master, Epi- 
curus, the Latin poet Lucretius writes: 

"Thus neither can death-dealing motions keep the 
mastery always, nor entomb existence f orevermore ; nor, 
on the other hand, can the birth and increase giving 
motions of things preserve them always after they are 
born. Thus the war of first beginnings waged from 
eternity is carried on with dubious issue: now here, 
now there, the life-bringing elements of things get the 
mastery and are o'ermastered in turn: with the funeral 
wail blends the cry which babies raise when they enter 
the borders of light ; and no night ever followed day, nor 
morning night, that heard not, mingling with the sickly 
infant's cries, wailings of the attendants on death and 
black funeral." 2 

In a similar vein, the earliest conceptions of natu- 
ral evolution attributed it to the coworking of 

2 Lucretius: De Rerum Natura, Bk. II, lines 569-580. 
Translation by Munro. 



NATURALISM 227 

two principles, that of Love or union and that of 
Hate or dissolution. The process is here distin- 
guished from the material of nature, but is still 
described in the language of practical life. A 
distinction between two aspects of vital phenomena 
is the next step. These may be regarded in respect 
either of the motion and change which attend them, 
or the rationality which informs them. Life is 
both effective and significant. Although neither 
of these ideas ever wholly ceases to be animistic, 
they may nevertheless be applied quite indepen- 
dently of one another. The one reduces the primi- 
tive animistic world to the lower end of its scale, 
the other construes it in terms of a purposive util- 
ity commensurable with that of human action. 
Now it is with mechanism, the former of these 
diverging ways, that the development of material- 
ism is identified. For this philosophy a thing 
need have no value to justify its existence, nor any 
acting intelligence to which it may owe its origin. 
Its bulk and position are sufficient for its being, 
and the operation of forces capable of integrating, 
dividing, or moving it is sufficient for its deriva- 
tion and history. In short, there is no rhyme or 
reason at the heart of things, but only actual mat- 
ter distributed by sheer force. With this elimina- 



228 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tion of the element of purposiveness from the 
hylozoistic world, the content and process of nature 
are fitted to one another. Matter is that which is 
moved by force, and force is the determining 
principle of the motions of matter. Materialism 
is now definitely equipped with its fundamental 
conceptions. 

§ 105. The central conceptions of materialism 
as a philosophical theory differ from those em- 
Materialism ployed in the physical sciences only in 

and Physical 

Science. what is demanded of them. The sci- 

entist reports upon physical phenomena without 
accepting any further responsibility, while those 
who like Lucretius maintain a physical meta- 
physics, must, like him, prove that " the minute 
bodies of matter from everlasting continually up- 
hold the sum of things." But, though they employ 
them in their own way, materialists and all other 
exponents of naturalism derive their central con- 
ceptions from the physical sciences, and so reflect 
the historical development through which these 
sciences have passed. To certain historical phases 
of physical science, in so far as these bear directly 
upon the meaning of naturalism, we now turn. 

§ 106. From the earliest times down to the 
present day the groundwork of materialism has 



NATURALISM 229 

most commonly been cast in the form of an atomic 
theory. Democritus, the first system-builder of 
The Develop- this school, adopted the conception of 

ment of the 

Conceptions indivisible particles (dro/xoi), impene- 

of Physical 

Science. trable in their occupancy of space, and 

Space and , 

Matter. varying among themselves only in form, 

order, and position. To provide for the motion 
that distributes them he conceived them as sep- 
arated from one another by empty space. From 
this it follows that the void is as real as matter, or, 
as Democritus himself is reputed to have said, 
" thing is not more real than no-thing." 

But atomism has not been by any means uni- 
versally regarded as the most satisfactory concep- 
tion of the relation between space and matter. 
Not only does it require two kinds of being, with 
the different attributes of extension and hardness, 
respectively, 3 but it would also seem to be experi- 
mentally inadequate in the case of the more subtle 
physical processes, such as light. The former of 
these is a speculative consideration, and as such 
had no little weight with the French philosopher 
Descartes, whose divisions and definitions so pro- 
foundly affected the course of thought in these 

3 The reader will find an interesting account of these 
opposing views in Locke's chapter on Space, in his Essay 
Concerning Human Understanding. 



230 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

matters after the sixteenth century. Holding also 
" that a vacuum or space in which there is abso- 
lutely no body is repugnant to reason," and that 
an indivisible space-filling particle is self-contra- 
dictory, he was led to identify space and matter; 
that is, to make matter as indispensable to space 
as space to matter. There is, then, but one kind 
of corporeal being, whose attribute is extension, 
and whose modes are motion and rest. The most 
famous application of the mechanical conceptions 
which he bases upon this first principle, is his 
theory of the planets, which are conceived to be 
embedded in a transparent medium, and to move 
with it, vortex fashion, about the sun. 4 

But the conception of the space-filling continuity 
of material substance owes its prominence at the 
present time to the experimental hypothesis of 
ether. This substance, originally conceived to 
occupy the intermolecular spaces and to serve as 
a medium for the propagation of undulations, is 
now regarded by many physicists as replacing 
matter. "It is the great hope of science at the 
present day," says a contemporary exponent of 
naturalism, " that hard and heavy matter will be 

4 Descartes distinguished his theory from that of Democ- 
ritus in the Principles of Philosophy, Part IV, § ccii. 



NATURALISM 231 

shown to be ether in motion." 5 Such a theory- 
would reduce bodies to the relative displacements 
of parts of a continuous substance, which would 
be first of all defined as spacial, and would pos- 
sess such further properties as special scientific 
hypotheses might require. 

Two broadly contrasting theories thus appear: 
that which defines matter as a continuous sub- 
stance coextensive with space; and that which de- 
fines it as a discrete substance divided by empty 
space. But both theories are seriously affected by 
the peculiarly significant development of the con- 
ception of force. 

§ 107. In the Cartesian system the cause of 
motion was pressure within a plenum. But in the 
Motion and seventeenth century this notion encoun- 
DevSLnt tered tne system of Newton, a system 
and Extension w hi cri seemed to involve action at a 

of the Concep- 
tion of Force, distance. In the year 1728 Voltaire 

wrote from London: 

"When a Frenchman arrives in London, he finds a 
very great change, in philosophy as well as in most other 
things. In Paris he left the world all full of matter; 
here he finds absolute vacua. At Paris the universe is 
seen rilled up with ethereal vortices, while here the same 

5 Pearson: Grammar of Science, pp. 259-260. Cf. ibid., 
Chap. VII, entire. 



232 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

space is occupied with the play of the invisible forces of 
gravitation. In Paris the earth is painted for us longish 
like an egg, and in London it is oblate like a melon. At 
Paris the pressure of the moon causes the ebb and flow 
of tides; in England, on the other hand, the sea gravitates 
toward the moon, so that at the same time when the 
Parisians demand high water of the moon, the gentlemen 
of London require an ebb." 6 

But these differences are not matters of taste, 
nor even rival hypotheses upon an equal footing. 
The Newtonian system of mechanics, the consum- 
mation of a development initiated by Galileo, dif- 
fered from the vortex theory of Descartes as exact 
science differs from speculation and unverified 
conjecture. And this difference of method carried 
with it eventually certain profound differences of 
content, distinguishing the Newtonian theory even 
from that of Democritus, with which it had so 
much in common. Although Democritus had 
sought to avoid the element of purposiveness in 
the older hylozoism by referring the motions of 
bodies as far as possible to the impact of other 
bodies, he nevertheless attributed these motions 
ultimately to weight, signifying thereby a certain 
downward disposition. Now it is true that in his 
general belief Newton himself is not free from 
hylozoism. He thought of the motions of the 
s Quoted in Ueberweg: History of Philosophy, II, p. 124. 



NATURALISM 233 

planets themselves as initiated and quickened by 
a power emanating ultimately from God. They 
are "impressed by an intelligent Agent," and 

" can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and 
skill of a powerful ever-living Agent who, being in all 
places, is more able by his will to move the bodies within 
his boundless uniform sensorium, and thereby to form 
and reform the parts of the universe, than we are by our 
will to move the parts of our own bodies." 7 

But by the side of these statements must be set 
his famous disclaimer, " hypotheses non jingo.' 1 '' 
In his capacity of natural philosopher he did not 
seek to explain motions, but only to describe them. 
Disbelieving as he did in action at a distance, he 
saw no possibility of explanation short of a refer- 
ence of them to God ; but such " hypotheses " he 
thought to be no proper concern of science. As a 
consequence, the mathematical formulation of mo- 
tions came, through him, to be regarded as the 
entire content of mechanics. The notion of an 
efficient cause of motion is still suggested by the 
term force, but even this term within the sys- 
tem of mechanics refers always to a definite 
amount of motion, or measurement of relative mo- 
tion. And the same is true of attraction, action, 

7 Quoted from the Opticks of Newton by James Ward, 
in his Naturalism and Agnosticism, I, p. 43. 



234 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

reaction, and the like. The further explanation 
of motion, the definition of a virtue or potency 
that produces it, first a neglected problem, then an 
irrelevant problem, is finally, for a naturalistic 
philosophy in which this progression is completed, 
an insoluble problem. For the sequel to this 
purely descriptive procedure on the part of science 
is the disavowal of " metaphysics " by those who 
will have no philosophy but science. Thus the 
scientific conservatism of Newton has led to the 
positivistic and agnostic phase of naturalism. But 
a further treatment of this development must be 
reserved until the issue of epistemology shall have 
been definitely raised. 

A different emphasis within the general mechan- 
ical scheme, attaching especial importance to the 
conceptions of force and energy, has led to a rival 
tendency in science and a contrasting type of natu- 
ralism. The mechanical hypotheses hitherto de- 
scribed are all of a simple and readily depicted 
type. They suggest an imagery quite in accord 
with common-sense and with observation of the 
motions of great masses like the planets. Material 
particles are conceived to move within a contain- 
ing space ; the motions of corpuscles, atoms, or the 
minute parts of ether, differing only in degree 



NATURALISM 235 

from those of visible bodies. The whole physical 
universe may be represented in the imagination 
as an aggregate of bodies participating in motions 
of extraordinary complexity, but of one type. 
But now let the emphasis be placed upon the de- 
termining causes rather than upon the moving 
bodies themselves. In other words, let the bodies 
be regarded as attributive and the forces as sub- 
stantive. The result is a radical alteration of the 
mechanical scheme and the transcendence of com- 
mon-sense imagery. This was one direction of 
outgrowth from the work of Newton. His force 
of gravitation prevailed between bodies separated 
by spaces of great magnitude. Certain of the fol- 
lowers of Newton, notably Cotes, accepting the 
formulas of the master but neglecting his allusions 
to the agency of God, accepted the principle of 
action at a distance. Force, in short, was con- 
ceived to pervade space of itself. But if force be 
granted this substantial and self-dependent char- 
acter, what further need is there of matter as a 
separate form of entity? For does not the pres- 
ence of matter consist essentially in resistance, 
itself a case of force % Such reflections as these 
led Boscovich and others to the radical departure 
of defining material particles as centres of force. 



236 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

§ 108. But a more fruitful hypothesis of the 
same general order is due to the attention directed 
The Develop- to the conception of energy, or capacity 

ment and Ex- 
tension of the for work, by experimental discoveries 

Conception - . 

of Energy. oi the possibility oi reciprocal trans- 
formations without loss, of motion, heat, electric- 
ity, and other processes. The principle of the 
conservation of energy affirms the quantitative 
constancy of that which is so transformed, meas- 
ured, for example, in terms of capacity to move 
units of mass against gravity. The exponents of 
what is called " energetics " have in many cases 
come to regard that the quantity of which is so 
conserved, as a substantial reality whose forms and 
distributions compose nature. A contemporary 
scientist, whose synthetic and dogmatic habit of 
mind has made him eminent in the ranks of popu- 
lar philosophy, writes as follows: 

"Mechanical and chemical energy, sound and heat, 
light and electricity, are mutually convertible; they 
seem to be but different modes of one and the same 
fundamental force or energy. Thence follows the im- 
portant thesis of the unity of all natural forces, or, as it 
may also be expressed, the 'monism of energy.'" 8 

8 Haeckel: Riddle of the Universe. Translation by Mc- 
Cabe, p. 254. 

The best systematic presentation of "energetics" is to 
be found in Ostwald's Vorlesungen iiber N atur-Philosophie. 



NATURALISM 237 

The conception of energy seems, indeed, to 
afford an exceptional opportunity to naturalism. 
We have seen that the matter-motion theory was 
satisfied to ignore, or regard as insoluble, problems 
concerning the ultimate causes of things. Further- 
more, as we shall presently see to better advantage, 
the more strictly materialistic type of naturalism 
must regard thought as an anomaly, and has no 
little difficulty with life. But the conception of 
energy is more adaptable, and hence better quali- 
fied to serve as a common denominator for various 
aspects of experience. The very readiness with 
which we can picture the corpuscular scheme is a 
source of embarrassment to the seeker after unity. 
That which is so distinct is bristling with incom- 
patibilities. The most aggressive materialist hesi- 
tates to describe thought as a motion of bodies in 
space. Energy, on the other hand, exacts little 
if anything beyond the character of measurable 
power. Thought is at any rate in some sense a 
power, and to some degree measurable. Recent 
discoveries of the dependence of capacity for men- 
tal exertion upon physical vitality and measure- 
ments of chemical energy received into the system 

Herbert Spencer, in his well-known First Principles, makes 
philosophical use of both "force" and "energy." 



238 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

as food, and somehow exhausted by the activities 
of thought, have lent plausibility to the hypothesis 
of a universal energy of which physical and " psy- 
chical " processes are alike manifestations. And 
the conception of energy seems capable not only 
of unifying nature, but also of satisfying the 
metaphysical demand for an efficient and moving 
cause. This term, like " force " and " power," is 
endowed with such a significance by common 
sense. Indeed, naturalism would seem here to 
have swung round toward its hylozoistic starting- 
point. The exponent of energetics, like the naive 
animistic thinker, attributes to nature a power like 
that which he feels welling up within himself. 
When he acts upon the environment, like meets 
like. Energetics, it is true, may obtain a definite 
meaning for its central conception from the meas- 
urable behavior of external bodies, and a meaning 
that may be quite free from vitalism or teleology. 
But in his extension of the conception the author 
of a philosophical energetics abandons this strict 
meaning, and blends his thought even with a phase 
of subjectivism, known as panpsychism. 9 This 
theory regards the inward life of all nature as 
homogeneous with an immediately felt activity or 
8 Cf. Chap. IX. 



NATURALISM 239 

appetency, as energetics finds the inner life to be 
homogeneous with the forces of nature. Both owe 
their philosophical appeal to their apparent success 
in unifying the world upon a direct empirical 
basis, and to their provision for the practical sense 
of reality. 

Such, in brief, are the main alternatives avail- 
able for a naturalistic theory of being, in conse- 
quence of the historical development of the funda- 
mental conceptions of natural science. 

§ 109. We turn now to an examination of the 
manner in which naturalism, equipped with work- 
The claims of * n £> P rmc ipl es > seeks to meet the special 
Naturalism, requirements of philosophy. The con- 
ception of the unity of nature is directly in the 
line of a purely scientific development, but natu- 
ralism takes the bold and radical step of regarding 
nature so unified as coextensive with the real, or 
at any rate knowable, universe. It will be remem- 
bered that among the early Greeks Anaxagoras 
had referred the creative and formative processes 
of nature to a non-natural or rational agency, which 
he called the Nous. The adventitious character of 
this principle, the external and almost purely 
nominal part which it played in the actual cos- 
mology of Anaxagoras, betrayed it into the hands 



240 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

of the atomists, with their more consistently natu- 
ralistic creed. Better, these maintain, the some- 
what dogmatic extension of conceptions proved to 
be successful in the description of nature, than a 
vague dualism which can serve only to distract the 
scientific attention and people the world with ol> 
scurities. There is a remarkable passage in Lu- 
cretius in which atomism is thus written large and 
inspired with cosmical eloquence: 

" For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of 
things station themselves each in its right place guided 
by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to say 
what motions each should assume, but because many in 
number and shifting about in many ways throughout 
the universe, they are driven and tormented by blows 
during infinite time past, after trying motions and unions 
of every kind at length they fall into arrangements such 
as those out of which our sum of things has been formed, 
and by which too it is preserved through many great 
years, when once it has been thrown into the appropriate 
motions, and causes the streams to replenish the greedy 
sea with copious river waters, and the earth, fostered by 
the heat of the sun, to renew its produce, and the race of 
living things to come up and flourish, and the gliding 
fires of ether to five: all which these several things could 
in no wise bring to pass, unless a store of matter could 
rise up from infinite space, out of which store they are 
wont to make up in due season whatever has been lost." 10 

The prophecy of La Place, the great French 

mathematician, voices the similar faith of the 

10 Lucretius: Op. cit., Bk. I, lines 1021-1237. 



NATURALISM 241 

eighteenth century in a mechanical understanding 
of the universe: 

" The human mind, in the perfection it has been able 
to give to astronomy, affords a feeble outline of such an 
intelligence. Its discoveries in mechanics and in geome- 
try, joined to that of universal gravitation, have brought 
it within reach of comprehending in the same analytical 
expressions the past and future states of the system of 
the world." 11 

As for God, the creative and presiding intelligence, 
La Place had " no need of any such hypothesis." 

§ 110. But these are the boasts of Homeric 
heroes before going into battle. The moment 
The Task of sucn a general position is assumed there 
Naturalism. ar i se sundry difficulties in the applica- 
tion of naturalistic principles to special interests 
and groups of facts. It is one thing to project a 
mechanical scheme in the large, but quite another 
to make explicit provision within it for the origin 
of nature, for life, for the human self with its 
ideals, and for society with its institutions. The 
naturalistic method of meeting these problems in- 
volves a reduction all along the line in the direc- 
tion of such categories as are derived from the 
infra-organic world. That which is not like the 

11 Quoted from La Place's essay on Probability by Ward: 
Op. cit., I, p. 41. 



242 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

planetary system must be construed as mechanical 
by indirection and subtlety. 

§ 111. The origin of the present known natural 
world was the first philosophical question to be 

The Ori "n of definitely me ^ D J science. The general 
the cosmos. f orm f solution which naturalism of- 
fers is anticipated in the most ancient theories of 
nature. These already suppose that the observed 
mechanical processes of the circular or periodic 
type, like the revolutions and rotations of the stars, 
are incidents in a historical mechanical process of 
a larger scale. Prior to the present fixed motions 
of the celestial bodies, the whole mass of cosmic 
matter participated in irregular motions analogous 
to present terrestrial redistributions. Such mo- 
tions may be understood to have resulted in the 
integration of separate bodies, to which they at 
the same time imparted a rotary motion. It is 
such a hypothesis that Lucretius paints in his bold, 
impressionistic colors. 

But the development of mechanics paved the 
way for a definite scientific theory, the so-called 
" nebular hypothesis," announced by La Place in 
1796, and by the philosopher Kant at a still earlier 
date. Largely through the Newtonian principle 
of the parallelogram of forces, the present masses, 



NATURALISM 243 

orbits, and velocities were analyzed into a more 
primitive process of concentration within a nebu- 
lous or highly diffused aggregate of matter. And 
with the aid of the principle of the conservation 
of energy this theory appears to make possible the 
derivation of heat, light, and other apparently 
non-mechanical processes from the same original 
energy of motion. 

But a persistently philosophical mind at once 
raises the question of the origin of this primeval 
nebula itself, with a definite organization and a 
vast potential energy that must, after all, be re- 
garded as a part of nature rather than its source. 
Several courses are here open to naturalism. It 
may maintain that the question of ultimate origin 
is unanswerable; it may regard such a process of 
concentration as extending back through an infi- 
nitely long past; 12 or, and this is the favorite 
alternative for more constructive minds, the his- 
torical cosmical process may be included within a 
still higher type of periodic process, which is re- 
garded as eternal. This last course has been fol- 
lowed in the well-known synthetic naturalism of 
Herbert Spencer. " Evolution," he says, " is the 

12 An interesting account and criticism of such a theory 
(Clifford's) is to be found in Royce's Spirit of Modern Philoso- 
phy, Lecture X. 



244 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

progressive integration of matter and dissipation 
of motion." But such a process eventually runs 
down, and may be conceived as giving place to a 
counter-process of devolution which scatters the 
parts of matter and gathers another store of poten- 
tial motion. The two processes in alternation will 
then constitute a cosmical system without begin- 
ning or end. 

In such wise a sweeping survey of the physical 
universe may be thought in the terms of natural 
science. The uniformitarian method in geology, 
resolving the history of the crust of the earth 
into known processes, such as erosion and igneous 
fusion ; 13 and spectral analysis, with its discov- 
eries concerning the chemical constituents of dis- 
tant bodies through the study of their light, have 
powerfully reenforced this effort of thought, and 
apparently completed an outline sketch of the uni- 
verse in terms of infra-organic processes. 

§ 112. But the cosmos must be made internally 
homogeneous in these same terms. There awaits 
Life. solution, in the first place, the serious 

Natural . . 

Selection. problem of the genesis and maintenance 

of life within a nature that is originally and ulti- 

13 This method replaced the old theory of " catastrophes" 
through the efforts of the English geologists, Hutton (1726- 
1797) and Lyell (1767-1849). 



NATURALISM 245 

mately inorganic. The assimilation of the field of 
biology and physiology to the mechanical cosmos 
had made little real progress prior to the nine- 
teenth century. Mechanical theories had, indeed, 
been projected in the earliest age of philosophy, 
and proposed anew in the seventeenth century. 14 
Nevertheless, the structural and functional tele- 
ology of the organism remained as apparently 
irrefutable testimony to the inworking of some 
principle other than that of mechanical necessity. 
Indeed, the only fruitful method applicable to 
organic phenomena was that which explained them 
in terms of purposive adaptation. And it was its 
provision for a mechanical interpretation of this 
very principle that gave to the Darwinian law of 
natural selection, promulgated in 1859 in the 
" Origin of Species," so profound a significance 
for naturalism. It threatened to reduce the last 
stronghold of teleology, and completely to dispense 
with the intelligent Author of nature. 

Darwin's hypothesis sought to explain the origin 
of animal species by survival under competitive 
conditions of existence through the possession of 
a structure suited to the environment. Only the 

14 Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, 
published in 1628, was regarded as a step in this direction. 



246 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

most elementary organism need be presupposed, 
together with slight variations in the course of 
subsequent generations, and both may be conceived 
to arise mechanically. There will then result in 
surviving organisms a gradual accumulation of 
such variations as promote survival under the spe- 
cial conditions of the environment. Such a prin- 
ciple had been suggested as early as the time of 
Empedocles, but it remained for Darwin to estab- 
lish it with an unanswerable array of observation 
and experimentation. If any organism whatsoever 
endowed with the power of generation be allowed 
to have somehow come to be, naturalism now prom- 
ises to account for the whole subsequent history 
of organic phenomena and the origin of any known 
species. 

§ 113. But what of life itself? The question 
of the derivation of organic from inorganic matter 
„ . . . has proved insoluble by direct means, 

Mechanical r " 

Physiology. an( j fo.Q case of naturalism must here 
rest upon such facts as the chemical homogeneity 
of these two kinds of matter, and the conformity 
of physiological processes to more general physical 
laws. Organic matter differs from inorganic only 
through the presence of proteid, a peculiar product 
of known elements, which cannot be artificially 



NATURALISM 247 

produced, but which is by natural means perpetu- 
ally dissolved into these elements without any dis- 
coverable residuum. Respiration may be studied 
as a case of aerodynamics, the circulation of the 
blood as a case of hydrodynamics, and the heat 
given off in the course of work done by the body 
as a case of thermodynamics. And although vital- 
istic theories still retain a place in physiology, as 
do teleological theories in biology, on the whole 
the naturalistic programme of a reduction of or- 
ganic processes to the type of the inorganic tends 
to prevail. 

§ 114. The history of naturalism shows that, 
as in the case of life, so also in the case of mind, 
Mind. its hypotheses were projected by the 

The Reduction . 

to Sensation. Greeks, but precisely formulated and 
verified only in the modern period of science. In 
the philosophy of Democritus the soul was itself 
an atom, finer, rounder, and smoother than the 
ordinary, but thoroughly a part of the mechanism 
of nature. The processes of the soul are construed 
as interactions between the soul and surrounding 
objects. In sensation, the thing perceived pro- 
duces images by means of effluxes which impinge 
upon the soul-atom. These images are not true 
reports of the outer world, but must be revised by 



248 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

thought before its real atomic structure emerges. 
For this higher critical exercise of thought De- 
mocritus devised no special atomic genesis. The 
result may be expressed either as the invalidity of 
such operations of mind as he could provide for 
in his universe, or the irreducibility to his chosen 
first principles of the very thought which defined 
them. Later naturalism has generally sacrificed 
epistemology to cosmology, and reduced thought to 
sensation. Similarly, will has been regarded as a 
highly developed case of instinct. Knowledge and 
will, construed as sensation and instinct, may thus 
be interpreted in the naturalistic manner within 
the field of biology. 

§ 115. But the actual content of sensation, and 
the actual feelings which attend upon the prompt- 
Automatism, ings of instinct, still stubbornly testify 
to the presence in the universe of something belong- 
ing to a wholly different category from matter and 
motion. The attitude of naturalism in this crucial 
issue has never been fixed and unwavering, but 
there has gradually come to predominate a method 
of denying to the inner life all efficacy and real 
significance in the cosmos, while admitting its 
presence on the scene. It is a strange fact of his- 
tory that Descartes, the French philosopher who 



NATURALISM 249 

prided himself on having rid the soul of all 
dependence on nature, should have greatly con- 
tributed to this method. But it is perhaps not so 
strange when we consider that every dualism is, 
after all, symmetrical, and that consequently what- 
ever rids the soul of nature at the same time rids 
nature of the soul. It was Descartes who first con- 
ceived the body and soul to be utterly distinct 
substances. The corollary to this doctrine was his 
automatism, applied in his own system to animals 
other than man, but which those less concerned 
with religious tradition and less firmly convinced 
of the soul's originating activity were not slow to 
apply universally. This theory conceived the vital 
processes to take place quite regardless of any 
inner consciousness, or even without its attendance. 
To this radical theory the French materialists of 
the eighteenth century were especially attracted. 
With them the active soul of Descartes, the distinct 
spiritual entity, disappeared. This latter author 
had himself admitted a department of the self, 
which he called the " passions," in which the 
course and content of mind is determined by bod- 
ily conditions. Extending this conception to the 
whole province of mind, they employed it to dem- 
onstrate the thorough-going subordination of mind 



250 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

to body. La Mettrie, a physician and the author 
of a book entitled " L'Homme Machine," was first 
interested in this thesis by a fever delirium, and 
afterward adduced anatomical and pathological 
data in support of it. The angle from which he 
views human life is well illustrated in the fol- 
lowing : 

" What would have sufficed in the case of Julius Csesar, 
of Seneca, of Petronius, to turn their fearlessness into 
timidity or braggartry? An obstruction in the spleen, 
the liver, or the vena portae. For the imagination is 
intimately connected with these viscera, and from them 
arise all the curious phenomena of hypochondria and 
hysteria. ... 'A mere nothing, a little fibre, some 
trifling thing that the most subtle anatomy cannot dis- 
cover, would have made two idiots out of Erasmus and 
Fontenelle.'" 15 

§ 116. The extreme claim that the soul is a 
physical organ of the body, identical with the 
Radical brain, marked the culmination of this 

Materialism. , 

Mind as an militant materialism, so good an in- 
non. stance of that over-simplification and 

whole-hearted conviction characteristic of the doc- 
trinaire propagandism of France. Locke, the Eng- 
lishman, had admitted that possibly the substance 
which thinks is corporeal. In the letters of Vol- 

15 From the account of La Mettrie in Lange: History of 
Materialism. Translation by Thomas, II, pp. 67-68. 



NATURALISM 251 

taire this thought has already found a more posi- 
tive expression: 

" I am body, and I think ; more I do not know. Shall 
I then attribute to an unknown cause what I can so 
easily attribute to the only fruitful cause I am acquainted 
with? In fact, where is the man who, without an absurd 
godlessness, dare assert that it is impossible for the 
Creator to endow matter with thought and feeling? " 18 

Finally, Holbach, the great systematizer of this 
movement, takes the affair out of the hands of the 
Creator and definitively announces that " a sensi- 
tive soul is nothing but a human brain so consti- 
tuted that it easily receives the motions communi- 
cated to it." 17 

This theory has been considerably tempered 
since the age of Holbach. Naturalism has latterly 
been less interested in identifying the soul with 
the body, and more interested in demonstrating its 
dependence upon specific bodily conditions, after 
the manner of La Mettrie. The so-called higher 
faculties, such as thought and will, have been re- 
lated to central or cortical processes of the nervous 
system, processes of connection and complication 
which within the brain itself supplement the im- 
pulses and sensations congenitally and externally 

18 Quoted from Voltaire's London Letter on the English, 
by Lange: Op. cit., II, p. 18. 

17 Quoted by Lange: Op. cit., II, p. 113. 



252 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

stimulated. The term " epi phenomenon " has been 
adopted to express the distinctness but entire de- 
pendence of the mind. Man is " a conscious 
automaton." The real course of nature passes 
through his nervous system, while consciousness 
attends upon its functions like a shadow, present 
but not efficient. 18 

§ 117. Holbach's " Systeme de la Mature," pub- 
lished in 1770, marks the culmination of the un- 
Knowiedge. equivocally materialistic form of natu- 

Positivism and . . 

Agnosticism, ralism. Its epistemological difficulties, 
always more or less in evidence, have since that 
day sufficed to discredit materialism, and to foster 
the growth of a critical and apologetic form of 
naturalism known as positivism or agnosticism. 
The modesty of this doctrine does not, it is true, 
strike very deep. For, although it disclaims knowl- 
edge of ultimate reality, it also forbids anyone 
else to have any. Knowledge, it affirms, can be 
of but one type, that which comprises the verifiable 
laws governing nature. All questions concerning 

18 The phrase " psycho-physical parallelism," current in 
psychology, may mean automatism of the kind expounded 
above, and may also mean dualism. It is used commonly 
as a methodological principle to signify that no causal 
relationship between mind and body, but one of corre- 
spondence, is to be looked for in empirical psychology. Cf. 
§99. 



NATURALISM 253 

first causes are futile, a stimulus only to excursions 
of fancy popularly mistaken for knowledge. The 
superior certainty and stability which attaches to 
natural science is to be permanently secured by 
the savant's steadfast refusal to be led away after 
the false gods of metaphysics. 

But though this is sufficient ground for an ag- 
nostic policy, it does prove an agnostic theory. 
The latter has sprung from a closer analysis of 
knowledge, though it fails to make a very brave 
showing for thoroughness and consistency. The 
crucial point has already been brought within our 
view. The general principles of naturalism re- 
quire that knowledge shall be reduced to sensations, 
or impressions of the environment upon the or- 
ganism. But the environment and the sensations 
do not correspond. The environment is matter and 
motion, force and energy; the sensations are of 
motions, to be sure, but much more conspicuously 
of colors, sounds, odors, pleasures, and pains. 
Critically, this may be expressed by saying that 
since the larger part of sense-perception is so un- 
mistakably subjective, and since all knowledge 
alike must be derived from this source, knowledge 
as a whole must be regarded as dealing only with 
appearances. There are at least three agnostic 



254 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

methods progressing from this point. All agree 
that the inner or essential reality is unfathomable. 
But, in the first place, those most close to the 
tradition of materialism maintain that the most 
significant appearances, the primary qualities, are 
those which compose a purely quantitative and 
corporeal world. The inner essence of things may 
at any rate be approached by a monism of matter 
or of energy. This theory is epistemological only 
to the extent of moderating its claims in the hope 
of lessening its responsibility. Another agnosti- 
cism places all sense qualities on a par, but would 
regard physics and psychology as complementary 
reports upon the two distinct series of phenomena 
in which the underlying reality expresses itself. 
This theory is epistemological to the extent of 
granting knowledge, viewed as perception, as good 
a standing in the universe as that which is accorded 
to its object. But such a dualism tends almost 
irresistibly to relapse into materialistic monism, 
because of the fundamental place of physical con- 
ceptions in the system of the sciences. Finally, 
in another and a more radical phase of agnosticism, 
we find an attempt to make full provision for the 
legitimate problems of epistemology. The only 
datum, the only existent accessible to knowledge, 



NATURALISM 255 

is said to be the sensation, or state of consciousness. 
In the words of Huxley: 

" What, after all, do we know of this terrible ' matter ' 
except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical 
cause of states of our own consciousness? And what do 
we know of that 'spirit' over whose threatened extinc- 
tion by matter a great lamentation is arising, . . . 
except that it is also a name for an unknown and hypo- 
thetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness?" 19 

The physical world is now to be regarded as a 
construction which does not assimilate to itself the 
content of sensations, but enables one to anticipate 
them. The sensation signifies a contact to which 
science can provide a key for practical guidance. 

§ 118. This last phase of naturalism is an at- 
tempt to state a pure and consistent experimental- 
Experimen- * sm > a wor kable theory of the routine of 
taiism. sensations. But it commonly falls into 

the error of the vicious circle. The hypothetical 
cause of sensations is said to be matter. From this 
point of view the sensation is a complex, compris- 
ing elaborate physical and physiological processes. 
But these processes themselves, on the other hand, 
are said to be analyzable into sensations. Now 
two such methods of analysis cannot be equally 
ultimate. If all of reality is finally reducible to 
9 Quoted by Ward: Op. cit, I, p. 18. 



256 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

sensations, then the term sensation must be used 
in a new sense to connote a self-subsistent being, 
and can no longer refer merely to a function of 
certain physiological processes. The issue of this 
would be some form of idealism or of the experi- 
ence-philosophy that is now coming so rapidly to 
the front. 20 But while it is true that idealism 
has sometimes been intended, and that a radically 
new philosophy of experience has sometimes been 
closely approached, those, nevertheless, who have 
developed experimentalism from the naturalistic 
stand-point have in reality achieved only a thinly 
disguised materialism. For the very ground of 
{heir agnosticism is materialistic. 21 Knowledge 
of reality itself is said to be unattainable, because 
knowledge, in order to come within the order of 
nature, must be regarded as reducible to sensation ; 
and because sensation itself, when regarded as a 
part of nature, is only a physiological process, a 
special phenomenon, in no way qualified to be 
knowledge that is true of reality. 

§ 119. Perhaps, after all, it would be as fair to 
the spirit of naturalism to relieve it of responsibil- 

20 There are times when Huxley, e. g., would seem to be 
on the verge of the Berkeleyan idealism. Cf. Chap. IX. 

21 For the case of Karl Pearson, read his Grammar of 
Science, Chap. II. 



NATURALISM 257 

ity for an epistemology. It has never thoroughly 
reckoned with this problem. It has deliberately 
Naturalistic selected from among the elements of ex- 

Epistemology . . 

not Systematic, perience, and been so highly construc- 
tive in its method as to forfeit its claim to pure 
empiricism; and, on the other hand, has, in this 
same selection of categories and in its insistence 
upon the test of experiment, fallen short of a thor- 
ough-going rationalism. While, on the one hand, 
it defines and constructs, it does so, on the other 
hand, within the field of perception and with con- 
stant reference to the test of perception. The ex- 
planation and justification of this procedure is to 
be found in the aim of natural science rather than 
in that of philosophy. It is this special interest, 
rather than the general problem of being, that de- 
termines the order of its categories. Naturalism 
as an account of reality is acceptable only so far 
as its success in satisfying specific demands obtains 
for it a certain logical immunity. These demands 
are unquestionably valid and fundamental, but 
they are not coextensive with the demand for truth. 
They coincide rather with the immediate practical 
need of a formulation of the spacial and temporal 
changes that confront the will. Hence naturalism 
is acceptable to common-sense as an account of 



258 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

what the every-day attitude to the environment 
treats as its object. Naturalism is common-sense 
about the " outer world/' revised and brought up 
to date with the aid of the results of science. Its 
deepest spring is the organic instinct for the reality 
of the tangible, the vital recognition of the signifi- 
cance of that which is on the plane of interaction 
with the body. 

§ 120. Oddly enough, although common-sense is 
ready to intrust to naturalism the description of 
General the situation of life, it prefers to deal 

Ethical 

stand-point, otherwise with its ideals. Indeed, com- 
mon-sense is not without a certain suspicion that 
naturalism is the advocate of moral reversion. It 
is recognized as the prophecy of the brute majority 
of life, of those considerations of expediency and 
pleasure that are the warrant for its secular moods 
rather than for its sustaining ideals. And that 
strand of life is indeed its special province. For 
the naturalistic method of reduction must find the 
key to human action among those practical condi- 
tions that are common to man and his inferiors 
in the scale of being. In short, human life, 
like all life, must be construed as the adjustment 
of the organism to its natural environment for 



NATURALISM 259 

the sake of preservation and economic advance- 
ment. 

§ 121. Early in Greek philosophy this general 
idea of life was picturesquely interpreted in two 
c nicism and contrasting ways, those of the Cynic 

Cyrenaicism. an{ J fae Cy rena i c> Both of these wise 

men postulated the spiritual indifference of the 
universe at large, and looked only to the contact of 
life with its immediate environment. But while 
the one hoped only to hedge himself about, the 
other sought confidently the gratification of his 
sensibilities. The figure of the Cynic is the more 
familiar. Diogenes of the tub practised self- 
mortification until his dermal and spiritual callous- 
ness were alike impervious. From behind his pro- 
tective sheath he could without affectation despise 
both nature and society. He could reckon himself 
more blessed than Alexander, because, with de- 
mand reduced to the minimum, he could be sure 
of a surplus of supply. Having renounced all 
goods save the bare necessities of life, he could 
neglect both promises and threats and be played 
upon by no one. He was securely intrenched 
within himself, an unfurnished habitation, but the 
citadel of a king. The Cyrenaic, on the other 
hand, did not seek to make impervious the surface 



260 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

of contact with nature and society, but sought to 
heighten its sensibility, that it might become a 
medium of pleasurable feeling. For the inspira- 
tion with which it may be pursued this ideal has 
nowhere been more eloquently set forth than in 
the pages of Walter Pater, who styles himself 
" the new Cyrenaic." 

" Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is 
the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to 
us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see 
in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest 
senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point 
to point, and be present always at the focus where the 
greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest 
energy? 

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to 
maintain this ecstacy, is success in life. . . . While 
all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any ex- 
quisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that 
seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a mo- 
ment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange 
colors, and curious odors, or work of the artist's hands, 
or the face of one's friend. Not to discriminate every 
moment some passionate attitude in those about us, 
and in the brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing 
of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and 
sun, to sleep before evening." 22 

§ 122. In the course of modern philosophy the 
ethics of naturalism has undergone a transforma- 

22 Pater: The Renaissance, pp. 249-250. 



NATURALISM 261 

tion and development that equip it much more 
formidably for its competition with rival theories. 
Development If the Cynic and Cyrenaic philosophies 

of Utilitarian- 
ism, of life seem too egoistic and narrow in 

Evolutionary . 

Conception outlook, this inadequacy has been large- 
Relations, ly overcome through the modern con- 
ception* of the relation of the individual to society. 
Man is regarded as so dependent upon social rela- 
tions that it is both natural and rational for him 
to govern his actions with a concern for the com- 
munity. There was a time when this relation of 
dependence was viewed as external, a barter of 
goods between the individual and society, sanc- 
tioned by an implied contract. Thomas Hobbes, 
whose unblushing materialism and egoism stimu- 
lated by opposition the whole development of Eng- 
lish ethics, conceived morality to consist in rules 
of action which condition the stability of the state, 
and so secure for the individual that " peace " 
which self-interest teaches him is essential to his 
welfare. 

" And therefore so long a man is in the condition of 
mere nature, which is a condition of war, as private 
appetite is the measure of good and evil: and conse- 
quently all men agree on this, that peace is good, and 
therefore also the ways or means of peace, which, as I 
have showed before, are 'justice/ 'gratitude/ modesty/ 



262 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

'equity,' 'mercy,' and the rest of the laws of Nature, are 
good; that is to say, 'moral virtues'; and their contrary 
'vices,' evil." 23 

Jeremy Bentham, the apostle of utilitarianism in 
the eighteenth century, denned political and social 
sanctions through which the individual could pur- 
chase security and good repute with action condu- 
cive to the common welfare. But the nineteenth 
century has understood the matter better — and the 
idea of an evolution under conditions that select 
and reject, is here again the illuminating thought. 
~No individual, evolutionary naturalism maintains, 
has survived the perils of life without possessing 
as an inalienable part of his nature, congenital like 
his egoism, certain impulses and instinctive desires 
in the interest of the community as a whole. The 
latest generation of a race whose perpetuation has 
been conditioned by a capacity to sustain social 
relations and make common cause against a more 
external environment, is moral, and does not adopt 
morality in the course of a calculating egoism. 
Conscience is the racial instinct of self-preservation 
uttering itself in the individual member, who draws 
his very life-blood from the greater organism. 
§ 123. This latest word of naturalistic ethics has 

23 Hobbes: Leviathan, Chap. XV. 



NATURALISM 263 

not won acceptance as the last word in ethics, and 
this in spite of its indubitable truth within its scope. 
Naturalistic For the deeper ethical interest seeks not 

Ethics not 

Systematic. so much to account for the moral nature 
as to construe and justify its promptings. The 
evolutionary theory reveals the genesis of con- 
science, and demonstrates its continuity with nat- 
ure, but this falls as far short of realizing the pur- 
pose of ethical study as a history of the natural 
genesis of thought would fall short of logic. In- 
deed, naturalism shows here, as in the realm of 
epistemology, a persistent failure to appreciate the 
central problem. Its acceptance as a philosophy, 
we are again reminded, can be accounted for only 
on the score of its genuinely rudimentary char- 
acter. As a rudimentary phase of thought it 
is both indispensable and inadequate. It is the 
philosophy of instinct, which should in normal 
development precede a philosophy of reason, in 
which it is eventually assimilated and supple- 
mented. 

§ 124. There is, finally, an inspiration for life 
which this philosophy of naturalism may convey — 
Naturalism as atheism, its detractors* would call it, but 

Antagonistic . 

to Religion, none the less a iaitn and a spiritual ex- 
altation that spring from its summing up of truth. 



264 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

It is well first to realize that which is dispiriting 
in it, its failure to provide for the freedom, im- 
mortality, and moral providence of the more san- 
guine faith. 

" For what is man looked at from this point of view? 
. . . Man, so far as natural science by itself is able 
to teach us, is no longer the final cause of the universe, 
the Heaven-descended heir of all the ages. His very 
existence is an accident, his story a brief and transitory 
episode in the life of one of the meanest of the planets. 
Of the combination of causes which first converted a 
dead organic compound into the living progenitors of 
humanity, science, indeed, as yet knows nothing. It 
is enough that from such beginnings famine, disease, 
and mutual slaughter, fit nurses of the future lords of 
creation, have gradually evolved, after infinite travail, 
a race with conscience enough to feel that it is vile, and 
intelligence enough to know that it is insignificant. 
. . . We sound the future, and learn that after a 
period, long compared with the individual life, but short 
indeed compared with the divisions of time open to our 
investigation, the energies of our system will decay, the 
glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless 
and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for 
a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into 
the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy 
consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a 
brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, 
will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. ' Im- 
perishable monuments' and 'immortal deeds/ death 
itself, and love stronger than death, will be as though 
they had never been. Nor will anything that is be 
better or be worse for all that the labor, genius, devo- 



NATURALISM 265 

tion, and suffering of man have striven through count- 
less generations to effect." 24 

§ 125. But though our philosopher must accept 
the truth of this terrible picture, he is not left 
Naturalism as without spiritual resources. The ab- 
ReH B ion S of ra stract religion provided for the agnostic 
Service, faithful by Herbert Spencer does not, 

Wonder, and J L 

Renunciation. ft j s true, afford any nourishment to the 
religious nature. He would have men look for a 
deep spring of life in the negative idea of mystery, 
the apotheosis of ignorance, while religious faith to 
live at all must lay hold upon reality. But there 
does spring from naturalism a positive religion, 
whose fundamental motives are those of service, 
wonder, and renunciation: service of humanity in 
the present, wonder at the natural truth, and re- 
nunciation of a universe keyed to vibrate with 
human ideals. 

"Have you," writes Charles Ferguson, "had dreams 
of Nirvana and sickly visions and raptures? Have you 
imagined that the end of your life is to be absorbed back 
into the life of God, and to flee the earth and forget all? 
Or do you want to walk on air, or fly on wings, or build a 
heavenly city in the clouds? Come, let us take our kit 
on our shoulders, and go out and build the city here." 25 

u Quoted from Balfour: Foundations of Belief, pp. 29-31. 
25 Ferguson: Religion of Democracy, p. 10. 



266 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

For Haeckel " natural religion " is such as 

" the astonishment with which we gaze upon the starry- 
heavens and the microscopic life in a drop of water, 
the awe with which we trace the marvellous working 
of energy in the motion of matter, the reverence with 
which we grasp the universal dominance of the law of 
substance throughout the uni verse." 28 

There is a deeper and a sincerer note in the stout, 
forlorn humanism of Huxley : 

" That which lies before the human race is a constant 
struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to the 
State of Nature, the State of Art of an organized polity; 
in which, and by which, man may develop a worthy 
civilization, capable of maintaining and constantly 
improving itself, until the evolution of our globe shall 
have entered so far upon its downward course that the 
cosmic process resumes its sway; and, once more, the 
State of Nature prevails over the surface of our planet." 27 

26 Haeckel: Op. tit., p. 344. 

27 Huxley: Evolution and Ethics, p. 45. Collected Essays, 
Vol. IX. 



CHAPTER IX 



SUBJECTIVISM 



§ 126. Whew, in the year 1710, Bishop Berke- 
ley maintained the thesis of empirical idealism, 
Subjectivism having rediscovered it and announced 
Originally As- it ^ -justifiable sense of originality, 

sociated with •> ° J 7 

Relativism j^ p roV oked a kind of critical judgment 

3.11(1 oCGptl - ■ 

cism. foal was keenly annoying if not entirely 

surprising to him. In refuting the conception of 
material substance and demonstrating the depend- 
ence of being upon mind, he at once sought, as he 
did repeatedly in later years, to establish the world 
of practical belief, and so to reconcile metaphysics 
and common-sense. Yet he found himself hailed 
as a fool and a sceptic. In answer to an inquiry 

1 Preliminary Note. By Subjectivism is meant that 
system of philosophy which construes the universe in ac- 
cordance with the epistemological principle that all knowledge 
is of its own states or activities. In so far as subjectivism 
reduces reality to states of knowledge, such as perceptions 
or ideas, it is phenomenalism. In so far as it reduces reality 
to a more internal active principle such as spirit or will, 
it is spiritualism. 

267 



268 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

concerning the reception of his book in London, 

his friend Sir John Percival wrote as follows: 

" I did but name the subject matter of your book of 
Principles to some ingenious friends of mine and they 
immediately treated it with ridicule, at the same time 
refusing to read it, which I have not yet got one to do. 
A physician of my acquaintance undertook to discover 
your person, and argued you must needs be mad, and 
that you ought to take remedies. A bishop pitied you, 
that a desire of starting something new should put you 
upon such an undertaking. Another told me that you 
are not gone so far as another gentleman in town, who 
asserts not only that there is no such thing as Matter, 
but that we ourselves have no being at all." 2 

There can be no doubt but that the idea of the 
dependence of real things upon their appearance 
to the individual is a paradox to common-sense. 
It is a paradox because it seems to reverse the 
theoretical instinct itself, and to define the real 
in those very terms which disciplined thought 
learns to neglect. In the early history of thought 
the nature of the thinker himself is recognized as 
that which is likely to distort truth rather than 
that which conditions it. When the wise man, the 
devotee of truth, first makes his appearance, his 
authority is acknowledged because he has re- 
nounced himself. As witness of the universal 

2 Berkeley: Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 352. Fraser's 
edition. 



SUBJECTIVISM 269 

being he purges himself of whatever is peculiar to 
his own individuality, or even to his human nature. 
In the aloofness of his meditation he escapes the 
cloud of opinion and prejudice that obscures the 
vision of the common man. In short, the element 
of belief dependent upon the thinker himself is 
the dross which must be refined away in order to 
obtain the pure truth. When, then, in the critical 
epoch of the Greek sophists, Protagoras declares 
that there is no belief that is not of this character, 
his philosophy is promptly recognized as scepti- 
cism. Protagoras argues that sense qualities are 
clearly dependent upon the actual operations of the 
senses, and that all knowledge reduces ultimately 
to these terms. 

"The senses are variously named hearing, seeing, 
smelling; there is the sense of heat, cold, pleasure, pain, 
desire, fear, and many more which are named, as well as 
innumerable others which have no name; with each of 
them there is born an object of sense, — all sorts of colors 
born with all sorts of sight and sounds in like manner 
with hearing, and other objects with the other senses." 3 

If the objects are " born with " the senses, it fol- 
lows that they are born with and appertain to the 
individual perceiver. 

8 Plato: Theaetetus, 156. Translation by Jowett. The 
italics are mine. 



270 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

" Either show, if you can, that our sensations are not 
relative and individual, or, if you admit that they are 
individual, prove that this does not involve the con- 
sequence that the appearance becomes, or, if you like to 
say, is to the individual only." 4 

The same motif is thus rendered by Walter Pater 
in the Conclusion of his " Renaissance " : 

"At first sight experience seems to bury us under a 
flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp 
and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a 
thousand forms of action. But when reflexion begins 
to act upon those objects they are dissipated under its 
influence; the cohesive force seems suspended like a 
trick of magic; each object is loosed into a group of 
impressions — color, odor, texture — in the mind of the 
observer. . ... Experience, already reduced to a 
swarm of impressions, is ringed round for each one of 
us by that thick wall of personality through which no 
real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us to 
that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every 
one of these impressions is the impression of the indi- 
vidual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary 
prisoner its own dream of a world." 

The Protagorean generalization is due to the re- 
flection that all experience is some individual ex- 
perience, that no subject of discourse escapes the 
imputation of belonging to some individual's pri- 
vate history. The individual must start with his 
own experiences and ideas, and he can never get 

4 Plato: Op. tit., 166. 



SUBJECTIVISM 271 

beyond them, for he cannot see outside his own 
vision, or even think outside his own mind. The 
scepticism of this theory is explicit, and the for- 
mulas of Protagoras — the famous " Man is the 
measure of all things," and the more exact for- 
mula, " The truth is what appears to each man at 
each time " 5 — have been the articles of scepticism 
throughout the history of thought. 

§ 127. There is, therefore, nothing really sur- 
prising in the reception accorded the " new phi- 
Phenomenai- losophy " of Bishop Berkeley. A scep- 

ism and Spirit- 
ualism, tical relativism is the earliest phase of 

subjectivism, and its avoidance at once becomes 
the most urgent problem of any philosophy which 
proposes to proceed forth from this principle. 
And this problem Berkeley meets with great adroit- 
ness and a wise recognition of difficulties. But 
his sanguine temperament and speculative interest 
impel him to what he regards as the extension of 
his first principle, the reintroduction of the con- 
ception of substance under the form of spirit, and 
of the objective order of nature under the form 
of the mind of God. In short, there are two mo- 
tives at work in him, side by side: the epistemo- 
logical motive, restricting reality to perceptions 

6 &Arj0« t eKdartfi e/coCTore fjonu. 



272 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

and thoughts, and the metaphysical-religious mo- 
tive, leading him eventually to the definition of 
reality in terms of perceiving and thinking spirits. 
And from the time of Berkeley these two prin- 
ciples, 'phenomenalism and spiritualism, have re- 
mained as distinct and alternating phases of 
subjectivism. The former is its critical and 
dialectical conception, the latter its constructive 
and practical conception. 

§ 128. As phenomenalism has its classic state- 
ment and proof in the writings of Berkeley, we 
Phenomenal- sna U do well to return to these. The 
tainedb Iam " ^ ac * ^ a t this philosopher wished to be 
The^lo^em re g ar ded as the prophet of common- 
inhented from gense h as already been mentioned. This 

Descartes " 

and Locke. purpose reveals itself explicitly in the 
series of " Dialogues between Hylas and Philo- 
nous." The form in which Berkeley here advances 
his thesis is further determined by the manner in 
which the lines were drawn in his day of thought. 
The world of enlightened public opinion was then 
threefold, consisting of God, physical nature, and 
the soul. In the early years of the seventeenth 
century Descartes had sharply distinguished be- 
tween the two substances — mind, with its attri- 
bute of thought; and body, with its attribute of 



SUBJECTIVISM 273 

extension — and divided the finite world between 
them. God was regarded as the infinite and sus- 
taining cause of both. Stated in the terms of 
epistemology, the object of clear thinking is the 
physical cosmos, the subject of clear thinking the 
immortal soul. The realm of perception, wherein 
the mind is subjected to the body, embarrasses the 
Cartesian system, and has no clear title to any 
place in it. And without attaching cognitive im- 
portance to this realm, the system is utterly dog- 
matic in its epistemology. 6 For what one sub- 
stance thinks, must be assumed to be somehow true 
of another quite independent substance without 
any medium of communication. Now between 
Descartes and Berkeley appeared the sober and 
questioning " Essay Concerning Human Under- 
standing," by John Locke. This is an interesting 
combination (they cannot be said to "blend) of 
traditional metaphysics and revolutionary episte- 
mology. The universe still consists of God, the 
immortal thinking soul, and a corporeal nature, 
the object of its thought. But, except for certain 
proofs of God and self, knowledge is entirely 
reduced to the perceptual type, to sensations, or 
ideas directly imparted to the mind by the objects 
6 For another issue out of this situation, cf. §§185-187. 



274 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

themselves. To escape dogmatism it is main- 
tained that the real is what is observed to be pres- 
ent. But Locke thinks the qualities so discovered 
belong in part to the perceiver and in part to 
the substance outside the mind. Color is a case 
of the former, a " secondary quality " ; and exten- 
sion a case of the latter, a " primary quality." 
And evidently the above empirical test of knowl- 
edge is not equally well met in these two cases. 
When I see a red object I know that red exists, 
for it is observed to be present, and I make no 
claim for it beyond the present. But when I note 
that the red object is square, I am supposed to 
know a property that will continue to exist in the 
object after I have closed my eyes or turned to 
something else. Here my claim exceeds my ob- 
servation, and the empirical principle adopted at 
the outset would seem to be violated. Berkeley 
develops his philosophy from this criticism. His 
refutation of material substance is intended as a 
full acceptance of the implications of the new em- 
pirical epistemology. Knowledge is to be all of 
the perceptual type, where what is known is 
directly presented ; and, in conformity with this 
principle, being is to be restricted to the content 
of the living pulses of experience. 



SUBJECTIVISM 275 

§ 129. Berkeley, then, beginning with the three- 
fold world of Descartes and of common-sense, 
TheRefuta- proposes to apply Locke's theory of 
Material knowledge to the discomfiture of cor- 

Substance. poreal nature. It was a radical doc- 
trine, because it meant for him and for his 
contemporaries the denial of all finite objects out- 
side the mind. But at the same time it meant a 
restoration of the homogeneity of experience, the 
reestablishment of the qualitative world of every- 
day living, and so had its basis of appeal to 
common-sense. The encounter between Hylas, the 
advocate of the traditional philosophy, and Philo- 
nous, who represents the author himself, begins 
with an exchange of the charge of innovation. 

Hyl. I am glad to find there was nothing in the 
accounts I heard of you. ■ 

Phil. Pray, what were those? 

Hyl. You were represented, in last night's conversa- 
tion, as one who maintained the most extravagant 
opinion that ever entered into the mind of man, to wit, 
that there is no such thing as material substance in the 
world. 

Phil. That there is no such thing as what philosophers 
call material substance, I am seriously persuaded: but if 
I were made to see anything absurd or sceptical in this, 
I should then have the same reason to renounce this 
that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion. 

Hyl. What! can anything be more fantastical, more 



276 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

repugnant to Common-Sense, or a more manifest piece 
of Scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as 
matter? 

Phil. Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove 
that you, who hold there is, are, by virtue of that opinion, 
a greater sceptic, and maintain more paradoxes and 
repugnances to Common-Sense, than I who believe no 
such thing? 7 

Philonous now proceeds with his case. Begin- 
ning by obtaining from Hylas the admission that 
pleasure and pain are essentially relative and sub- 
jective, he argues that sensations such as heat, 
since they are inseparable from these feelings, 
must be similarly regarded. And he is about 
to annex other qualities in turn to this core 
of subjectivity, when Hylas enters a general 
demurrer : 

"Hold, Philonous, I now see what it was deluded me 
all this time. You asked me whether heat and cold, 
sweetness and bitterness, were not particular sorts of 
pleasure and pain ; to which I answered simply that they 
were. Whereas I should have thus distinguished: — 
those qualities as perceived by us, are pleasures or pains; 
but not as existing in the external objects. We must 
not therefore conclude absolutely, that there is no heat 
in the fire, or sweetness in the sugar, but only that heat 
or sweetness, as perceived by us, are not in the fire or 
sugar." 8 

7 Berkeley: Op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 380-381. 

8 Ibid., p. 389. 



SUBJECTIVISM 277 

§ 130. Here the argument touches upon pro- 
found issues. Philonous now assumes the extreme 
empirical contention that knowledge 
tion of the applies only to its own psychological 

Epistemologi- rr a r o v 

cai Principle, 'moment, that its object in no way ex- 
tends beyond that individual situation which we 
call the state of knowing. The full import of such 
an epistemology Berkeley never recognized, but he 
is clearly employing it here, and the overthrow of 
Hylas is inevitable so long as he does not challenge 
it or turn it against his opponent. This, however, 
as a protagonist of Berkeley's own making, he fails 
to do, and he plays into Philonous's hands by ad- 
mitting that what is known only in perception 
must for that reason consist in perception. He 
frankly owns " that it is vain to stand out any 
longer," that " colors, sounds, tastes, in a word, 
all those termed secondary qualities, have certainly 
no existence without the mind." 9 

Hylas has now arrived at the distinction be- 
tween primary and secondary qualities. " Exten- 
sion, Figure, Solidity, Gravity, Motion, and Rest " 
are the attributes of an external substance which 
is the cause of sensations. But the same episte- 
mological principle readily reduces these also to 
9 Ibid., p. 397. 



278 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

dependence on mind, for, like the secondary quali- 
ties, their content is given only in perception. 
Hylas is then driven to defend a general material 
substratum, which is the cause of ideas, but to 
which none of the definite content of these ideas 
can be attributed. In short, he has put all the 
content of knowledge on the one side, and admitted 
its inseparability from the perceiving spirit, and 
left the being of things standing empty and for- 
lorn on the other. This amounts, as Philonous re- 
minds him, to the denial of the reality of the 
known world. 

" You are therefore, by your principles, forced to 
deny the reality of sensible things; since you made it to 
consist in an absolute existence exterior to the mind. 
That is to say, you are a downright sceptic. So I have 
gained my point, which was to show your principles led 
to Scepticism." 10 

§ 131. Having advanced the direct empiricist 
argument for phenomenalism, Berkeley now gives 
The Refuta- the rationalistic motive an opportunity 

tion of a 

Conceived to express itself in the queries of Hylas 
world. as to whether there be not an " absolute 

extension," somehow abstracted by thought from 
the relativities of perception. Is there not at least 
a conceivable world independent of perception? 
10 Ibid., p. 418. 



SUBJECTIVISM 279 

The answers of Philonous throw much light upon 
the Berkeleyan position. He admits that thought 
is capable of separating the primary from the sec- 
ondary qualities in certain operations, but at the 
same time denies that this is forming an idea of 
them as separate. 

" I acknowledge, Hylas, it is not difficult to form 
general propositions and reasonings about those quali- 
ties, without mentioning any other; and, in this sense, 
to consider or treat of them abstractedly. But, how 
doth it follow that, because I can pronounce the word 
motion by itself, I can form the idea of it in my mind 
exclusive of body? or, because theorems may be made 
of extension and figures, without any mention of great 
or small, or any other sensible mode or quality, that 
therefore it is possible such an abstract idea of extension, 
without any particular size or figure, or sensible quality, 
should be distinctly formed, and apprehended by the 
mind? Mathematicians treat of quantity, without re- 
garding what other sensible qualities it is attended with, 
as being altogether indifferent to their demonstrations. 
But, when laying aside the words, they contemplate the 
bare ideas, I believe you will find, they are not the pure 
abstracted ideas of extension." 11 

Berkeley denies that we have ideas of pure exten- 
sion or motion, because, although we do actually 
deal with these and find them intelligible, we can 
never obtain a state of mind in which they appear 
as the content. He applies this psychological test 
11 Ibid., pp. 403-404. 



280 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

because of his adherence to the general empirical 
postulate that knowledge is limited to the indi- 
vidual content of its own individual states. " It 
is a universally received maxim," he says, " that 
everything which exists is particular." Now the 
truth of mathematical reckoning is not particular, 
but is valid wherever the conditions to which it 
refers are fulfilled. Mathematical reckoning, if 
it is to be particular, must be regarded as a 
particular act or state of some thinker. Its truth 
must then be construed as relative to the interests 
of the thinker, as a symbolism which has an in- 
strumental rather than a purely cognitive value. 
This conclusion cannot be disputed short of a rad- 
ical stand against the general epistemological prin- 
ciple to which Berkeley is so far true, the principle 
that the reality which is known in any state of 
thinking or perceiving is the state itself. 

§ 132. This concludes the purely phenomenal- 
istic strain of Berkeley's thought. He has taken 
The Transition ^ ne immediate apprehension of sensible 
to Spiritualism. 0D j ec t s in a state of mind centring 
about the pleasure and pain of an individual, to 
be the norm of knowledge. He has further main- 
tained that knowledge cannot escape the particu- 
larity of its own states. The result is that the 



SUBJECTIVISM 281 

universe is composed of private perceptions and 
ideas. Strictly on the basis of what has preceded, 
Hylas is justified in regarding this conclusion as 
no less sceptical than that to which his own posi- 
tion had been reduced; for while he had been 
compelled to admit that the real is unknowable, 
Philonous has apparently defined the knowable as 
relative to the individual. But the supplementary 
metaphysics which had hitherto been kept in the 
background is now revealed. It is maintained 
that though perceptions know no external world, 
they do nevertheless reveal a spiritual substance 
of which they are the states. Although it has 
hitherto been argued that the esse of things is in 
their percipi, this is now replaced by the more 
fundamental principle that the esse of things is in 
their percipere or velle. The real world consists 
not in perceptions, but in perceivers. 

§ 133. Now it is at once evident that the episte- 
mological theory which has been Berkeley's dia- 
FurtherAt- lectical weapon in the foregoing argu- 

tempts to m 

Maintain ment is no longer available. And those 

Phenomenal- 7 „ , . , 

ism. who have cared more tor this theory 

than for metaphysical speculation have attempted 
to stop at this point, and so to construe phenom- 
enalism as to make it self-sufficient on its own 



282 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

grounds. Such attempts are so instructive as to 
make it worth our while to review them before 
proceeding with the development of the spiritual- 
istic motive in subjectivism. 

The world is to be regarded as made up of sense- 
perceptions, ideas, or phenomena. What is to be 
accepted as the fundamental category which gives 
to all of these terms their subjectivistic signifi- 
cance ? So far there seems to be nothing in view 
save the principle of relativity. The type to which 
these were reduced was that of the peculiar or 
unsharable experience best represented by an in- 
dividual's pleasure and pain. But relativity will 
not work as a general principle of being. It con- 
signs the individual to his private mind, and can- 
not provide for the validity of knowledge enough 
even to maintain itself. Some other course, then, 
must be followed. Perception may be given a 
psycho-physical definition, which employs physical 
terms as fundamental; 12 but this flagrantly con- 
tradicts the phenomenalistic first principle. Or, 
reality may be regarded as so stamped with its 
marks as to insure the proprietorship of thought. 
But this definition of certain objective entities of 

12 Cf. Pearson: Grammar of Science, Chap. II. See above, 
§ 118. 



SUBJECTIVISM 283 

mind, of beings attributed to intelligence because 
of their intrinsic intelligibility, is inconsistent 
with empiricism, if indeed it does not lead eventu- 
ally to a realism of the Platonic type. 13 Finally, 
and most commonly, the terms of phenomenalism 
have been retained after their orignal meaning has 
been suffered to lapse. The " impressions " of 
Hume, e. g., are the remnant of the Berkeleyan 
world with the spirit stricken out. There is no 
longer any point in calling them impressions, for 
they now mean only elements or qualities. As a 
consequence this outgrowth of the Berkeleyanism 
epistemology is at present merging into a realistic 
philosophy of experience. 14 Any one, then, of 
these three may be the last state of one who under- 
takes to remain exclusively faithful to the phe- 
nomenalistic aspect of Berkeleyanism, embodied in 
the principle esse est percipi. 

13 See Chap. XI. Cf. also § 140. 

14 The same may be said of the " permanent possibilities of 
sensation," proposed by J. S. Mill. Such possibilities out- 
side of actual perception are either nothing or things such 
as they are known to be in perception. In either case they are 
not perceptions. 

In Ernst Mach's Analysis of Sensations, the reader will 
find an interesting transition from sensationalism to realism 
through the substitution of the term Bestandtheil for Em- 
pfindung. (See Translation by Williams, pp. 18-20.) See 
below, § 207. 



284 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Berkeley's § 134. Let us now follow the fortunes 

Spiritualism. 

immediate of the other phase of subjectivism — 

Knowledge of . . 

the Perceiver. that which develops the conception of 
the perceiver rather than the perceived. When 
Berkeley holds that 

"all the choir of heaven and furniture of the Earth, in 
a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty 
frame of the world, have not any subsistence without 
a Mind," 

his thought has transcended the epistemology with 
which he overthrew the conception of material sub- 
stance, in two directions. For neither mind of the 
finite type nor mind of the divine type is perceived. 
But the first of these may yet be regarded as a 
direct empirical datum, even though sharply dis- 
tinguished from an object of perception. In the 
third dialogue, Philonous thus expounds this new 
kind of knowledge : 

" I own I have properly no idea, either of God or any 
other spirit; for these being active, cannot be represented 
by things perfectly inert, as our ideas are. I do never- 
theless know that I, who am a spirit or thinking sub- 
stance, exist as certainly as I know my ideas exist. 
Farther, I know what I mean by the terms / and myself; 
and I know this immediately or intuitively, though I 
do not perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a color, or a 
sound." 15 

15 Berkeley: Op. cit., p. 447. 



SUBJECTIVISM 285 

The knowledge here provided for may he regarded 
as empirical because the reality in question is an 
individual present in the moment of the knowl- 
edge. Particular acts of perception are said di- 
rectly to reveal not only perceptual objects, but 
perceiving subjects. And the conception of spir- 
itual substance, once accredited, may then be ex- 
tended to account for social relations and to fill 
in the nature of God. The latter extension, in so 
far as it attributes such further predicates as uni- 
versality and infinity, implies still a third episte- 
mology, and threatens to pass over into rationalism. 
But the knowledge of one's fellow-men may, it is 
claimed, be regarded as immediate, like the knowl- 
edge of one's self. Perceptual and volitional ac- 
tivity has a sense for itself and also a sense for 
other like activity. The self is both self-conscious 
and socially conscious in an immediate experience 
of the same type. 

§ 135. But this general spiritualistic conception 
is developed with less singleness of purpose in 
schopen- Berkeley than among the voluntarists 

hauer's Spirit- 
ualism, or and panpsychists who spring from 

Voluntarism. " ■ . . 

immediate bchopenhauer, the orientalist, pessimist, 
of the will, and mystic among the German Kan- 
tians of the early nineteenth century. His great 



286 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

book, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," 
opens with the phenomenalistic contention that 
" the world is my idea." It soon appears, how- 
ever, that the " my " is more profoundly signifi- 
cant than the " idea." Nature is my creation, 
due to the working within me of certain fixed 
principles of thought, such as space, time, and 
causality. But nature, just because it is my crea- 
tion, is less than me : is but a manifestation of the 
true being for which I must look within myself. 
But this inner self cannot be made an object of 
thought, for that would be only to create another 
term of nature. The will itself, from which such 
creation springs, is " that which is most immedi- 
ate " in one's consciousness, and " makes itself 
known in a direct manner in its particular acts." 
The term will is used by Schopenhauer as a gen- 
eral term covering the whole dynamics of life, in- 
stinct and desire, as well as volition. It is that 
sense of life-preserving and life-enhancing appe- 
tency which is the conscious accompaniment of 
struggle. With its aid the inwardness of the whole 
world may now be apprehended. 

" Whoever has now gained from all these expositions 
a knowledge in abstracto, and therefore clear and certain, 
of what everyone knows directly in concreto, i. e., as 



SUBJECTIVISM 287 

feeling, a knowledge that his will is the real inner nature 
of his phenomenal being, . . . and that his will is 
that which is most immediate in his consciousness, 
. . . will find that of itself it affords him the key to 
the knowledge of the inmost being of the whole of nature ; 
for he now transfers it to all those phenomena which are 
not given to him, like his own phenomenal existence, 
both in direct and indirect knowledge, but only in the 
latter, thus merely one-sidedly as idea alone." 16 

The heart of reality is thus known by an " intui- 
tive interpretation/' which begins at home in the 
individual's own heart. 

§ 136. The panpsychist follows the same course 
of reflection. There is an outwardness and an 
Panpsychism. inwardness of nature, corresponding to 
the knower's body on the one hand, and his feel- 
ing or will on the other. With this principle in 
hand one may pass down the whole scale of being 
and discover no breach of continuity. Such an 
interpretation of nature has been well set forth by 
a contemporary writer, who quotes the following 
from the botanist, C. v. ISTaegeli : 

" Sensation is clearly connected with the reflex actions 
of higher animals. We are obliged to concede it to the 
other animals also, and we have no grounds for denying 
it to plants and inorganic bodies. The sensation arouses 
in us a condition of comfort and discomfort. In general, 

16 Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Idea. Transla- 
tion by Haldane and Kemp, Vol. I, p. 141. 



288 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the feeling of pleasure arises when the natural impulses 
are satisfied, the feeling of pain when they are not satis- 
fied. Since all material processes are composed of 
movements of molecules and elementary atoms, pleasure 
and pain must have their seat in these particles. . . . 
Thus the same mental thread runs through all material 
phenomena. The human mind is nothing but the 
highest devolpment on our earth of the mental processes 
which universally animate and move nature." 17 

According to panpsyckism, then, physical nature 
is the manifestation of an appetency or bare con- 
sciousness generalized from the thinker's awareness 
of his most intimate self. Such appetency or bare 
consciousness is the essential or substantial state 
of that which appears as physical nature. 

§ 137. We must now turn to the efforts which 
this doctrine has made to maintain itself against 
The inherent the sceptical trend of its own episte- 
slrituaHsm m °l°gy> For precisely as in the case 
No Provision £ phenomenalism its dialectical prin- 

for Objective ■*■ A 

Knowiedge. ciple threatens to be self-destructive. 
Immediate presence is still the test of knowledge. 
But does not immediate presence connote relativ- 
ity and inadequacy, at best; an initial phase of 
knowledge that must be supplemented and cor- 

17 Quoted from Naegeli: Die Mechanisch-physiologische Theo~ 
He der Abstammungslehre, by Friedrich Paulsen, in his Intro- 
duction to Philosophy. Translation by Thilly, p. 103. 



SUBJECTIVISM 289 

rected before objective reality and valid truth 
are apprehended? Does not the individuality of 
the individual thinker connote the very maximum 
of error ? Indeed, spiritualism would seem to have 
exceeded even Protagoreanism itself, and to have 
passed from scepticism to deliberate nihilism. The 
object of knowledge is no longer even, as with the 
phenomenalist, the thinker's thought, but only his 
thinking. And if the thinker's thought is relative 
to him, then the thinker's act of thinking is the 
very vanishing-point of relativity, the negative 
term of a negating relation. How is a real, a 
self-subsistent world to be composed of such ? Im- 
pelled by a half-conscious realization of the hope- 
lessness of this situation, the exponent of spiritu- 
alism has sought to universalize his conception; 
to define an absolute or ultimate spirit other than 
the individual thinker, though known in and 
through him. But it is clear that this development 
of spiritualism, like all of the speculative proced- 
ure of subjectivism, threatens to exceed the scope 
of the original principle of knowledge. There is 
a strong presumption against the possibility of 
introducing a knowledge of God by the way of 
the particular presentations of an individual con- 
sciousness. 



290 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

§ 138. Schopenhauer must be credited with a 
genuine effort to accept the metaphysical conse- 
schopen- quences of his epistemology. His 
fempt S t At " epistemology, as we have seen, defined 
Universalize knowledge as centripetal. The object 

Subjectivism. ox •> 

Mysticism. f rea i knowledge is identical with the 
subject of knowledge. If I am to know the uni- 
versal will, therefore, I must in knowing become 
that will. And this Schopenhauer maintains. 
The innermost heart of the individual into which 
he may retreat, even from his private will, is — the 
universal. But there is another way of arriving 
at the same knowledge. In contemplation I may 
become absorbed in principles and laws, rather 
than be diverted by the particular spacial and 
temporal objects, until (and this is peculiarly true 
of the aesthetic experience) my interest no longer 
distinguishes itself, but coincides with truth. In 
other words, abstract thinking and pure willing 
are not opposite extremes, but adjacent points on 
the deeper or transcendent circle of experience. 
One may reach this part of the circle by moving 
in either of two directions that at the start are 
directly opposite : by turning in upon the subject 
or by utterly giving one's self up to the object. 
Reality obtains no definition by this means. Phi- 



SUBJECTIVISM 291 

losophy, for Schopenhauer, is rather a programme 
for realizing the state in which I will the universal 
and know the universal will. The final theory of 
knowledge, then, is mysticism, reality directly ap- 
prehended in a supreme and incommunicable ex- 
perience, direct and vivid, like perception, and at 
the same time universal, like thought. But the 
empiricism with which Schopenhauer began, the 
appeal to a familiar experience of self as will, has 
meanwhile been forgotten. The idea as object of 
my perception, and the will as its subject were in 
the beginning regarded as common and verifiable 
items of experience. But who, save the occasional 
philosopher, knows a universal will ? ISTor have at- 
tempts to avoid mysticism, while retaining Scho- 
penhauer's first principle, been successful. Certain 
voluntarists and panpsychists have attempted to 
do without the universal will, and define the world 
solely in terms of the many individual wills. But, 
as Schopenhauer himself pointed out, individual 
wills cannot be distinguished except in terms of 
something other than will, such as space and time. 
The same is true if for will there be substituted 
inner feeling or consciousness. Within this cate- 
gory individuals can be distinguished only as 
points of view, which to be comparable at all must 



292 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

contain common objects, or be defined in terms 
of a system of relations like that of the physical 
world or that of an ethical community. The con- 
ception of pure will or pure feeling inevitably at- 
taches to itself that of an undivided unity, if for 
no other reason because there is no ground for dis- 
tinction. And such a unity, a will or conscious- 
ness that is no particular act or idea, can be known 
only in the unique experience which mysticism 
provides. 

§ 139. The way of Schopenhauer is the way of 
one who adheres to the belief that what the thinker 
elective knows must always be a part of himself, 
spiritualism, j^g g^g or ki s activity. From this 

point of view the important element of being, its 
very essence or substance, is not any definable 
nature but an immediate relation to the knower. 
The consequence is that the universe in the last 
analysis can only be defined as a supreme state or 
activity into which the individual's consciousness 
may develop. Spiritualism has, however, other 
interests, interests which may be quite independent 
of epistemology. It is speculatively interested in 
a kind of being which it defines as spiritual, and 
in terms of which it proposes to define the universe. 
Such procedure is radically different from the 



SUBJECTIVISM 293 

epistemological criticism which led Berkeley to 
maintain that the esse of objects is in their percipi, 
or Schopenhauer to maintain that " the world is 
my idea," or that led both of these philosophers to 
find a deeper reality in immediately intuited self- 
aetivity. For now it is proposed to understand 
spirit, discover its properties, and to acknowledge 
it only where these properties appear. I may now 
know spirit as an object; which in its properties, 
to be sure, is quite different from matter, but which 
like matter is capable of subsisting quite independ- 
ently of my knowledge. This is a metaphysical 
spiritualism quite distinct from epistemological 
spiritualism, and by no means easily made con- 
sistent therewith. Indeed, it exhibits an almost 
irrepressible tendency to overstep the bounds both 
of empiricism and subjectivism, an historical con- 
nection with which alone justifies its introduction 
in the present chapter. 

§ 140. To return again to the instructive ex- 
Berkeiey's ample of Bishop Berkeley, we find him 

Conception of 

God as cause, proving God f rom the evidence of him 

Goodness and . . . 1 . 

Order. m experience, or the need ol him to 

support the claims of experience. 

" But, whatever power I may have over my own 
thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense 



294 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

have not a like dependence on my will. When in broad 
daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose 
whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular 
objects shall present themselves to my view: and so 
likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas 
imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is 
therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them. 

The ideas of Sense are more strong, lively, and distinct 
than those of the Imagination; they have likewise a 
steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excited at 
random, as those which are the effects of human wills 
often are, but in a regular train or series — the admirable 
connection whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and 
benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules, or estab- 
lished methods, wherein the Mind we depend on excites 
in us the ideas of Sense, are called the laws of nature." 18 

Of the attributes of experience here in question, 
independence or " steadiness " is not regarded as 
prima facie evidence of spirit, but rather as an 
aspect of experience for which some cause is nec- 
essary. But it is assumed that the power to " pro- 
duce," with which such a cause must be endowed, 
is the peculiar prerogative of spirit, and that this 
cause gives further evidence of its spiritual nature, 
of its eminently spiritual nature, in the orderli- 
ness and the goodness of its effects. 

" The force that produces, the intellect that orders, the 
goodness that perfects all things is the Supreme Being." 1B 

18 Berkeley: Op. cit., p. 273. 

19 Op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 272-273. 



SUBJECTIVISM 295 

That spirit is possessed of causal efficacy, Berke- 
ley has in an earlier passage proved by a direct 
appeal to the individual's sense of power. 

" I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, 
and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is 
no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea 
arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is ob- 
literated and makes way for another. This making 
and unmaking of ideas doth very properly denominate 
the mind active. Thus much is certain and grounded 
on experience: but when we talk of unthinking agents, 
or of exciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse 
ourselves with words." 20 

Although Berkeley is here in general agreement 
with a very considerable variety of philosophical 
views, it will be readily observed that this doctrine 
tends to lapse into mysticism whenever it is re- 
tained in its purity. Berkeley himself admitted 
that there was no " idea " of such power. And 
philosophers will as a rule either obtain an idea 
corresponding to a term or amend the term — 
always excepting the mystical appeal to an inar- 
ticulate and indefinable experience. Hence pure 
power revealed in an ineffable immediate experi- 
ence tends to give place to kinds of power to which 
some definite meaning may be attached. The 
energy of physics, defined by measurable quan- 
20 Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 278. 



296 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

titative equivalence, is a case in point. The ideal- 
istic trend is in another direction, power coming 
to signify ethical or logical connection. Simi- 
larly, in the later philosophy of Berkeley himself, 
God is known by the nature of his activity rather 
than by the fact of his activity; and we are said 
" to account for a thing, when we show that it 
is so best." God's power, in short, becomes indis- 
tinguishable from his universality attended with 
the attributes of goodness and orderliness. But 
this means that the analogy of the human spirit, 
conscious of its own activity, is no longer the basis 
of the argument. By the divine will is now meant 
ethical principles, rather than the " here am I 
willing " of the empirical consciousness. Simi- 
larly the divine mind is denned in terms of logical 
principles, such as coherence and order, rather 
than in terms of the " here am I thinking " of the 
finite knower himself. But enough has been said 
to make it plain that this is no longer the stand- 
point of empirio-idealism. Indeed, in his last 
philosophical writing, the " Siris," Berkeley is so 
far removed from the principles of knowledge 
which made him at once the disciple and the critic 
of Locke, as to pronounce himself the devotee of 
Platonism and the prophet of transcendentalism. 



SUBJECTIVISM 297 

The former strain appears in his conclusion that 
" the principles of science are neither objects of 
sense nor imagination ; and that intellect and rea- 
son are alone the sure guides to truth." 21 His 
transcendentalism appears in his belief that such 
principles, participating in the vital unity of the 
Individual Purpose, constitute the meaning and so 
the substantial essence of the universe. 

§ 141. Such then are the various paths which 
lead from subjectivism to other types of philos- 
The General ophy, demonstrating the peculiar apti- 

Tendency of 

Subjectivism tude of the former for departing from 

to Transcend , . , . 

itself. its first principle. Beginning with the 

relativity of all knowable reality to the individual 
knower, it undertakes to conceive reality in one or 
the other of the terms of this relation, as particu- 
lar state of knowledge or as individual subject of 
knowledge. But these terms develop an intrinsic 
nature of their own, and become respectively 
empirical datum, and logical or ethical principle. 
In either case the subjectivistic principle of knowl- 
edge has been abandoned. Those whose specula- 
tive interest in a definable objective world has been 
less strong than their attachment to this principle, 
have either accepted the imputation of scepticism, 
21 Op. (At., Vol. Ill, p. 249. 



298 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

or had recourse to the radical epistemological doc- 
trine of mysticism. 

§ 142. Since the essence of subjectivism is 
epistemological rather than metaphysical, its prac- 
Ethicai tical and religious implications are 

Theories. 

Relativism. various. The ethical theories which 
are corollary to the tendencies expounded above, 
range from extreme egoism to a mystical univer- 
salism. The close connection between the former 
and relativism is evident, and the form of egoism 
most consistent with epistemological relativism is 
to be found among those same Sophists who first 
maintained this latter doctrine. If we may 
believe Plato, the Sophists sought to create for 
their individual pupils an appearance of good. 
In the " Theaetetus," Socrates is represented as 
speaking thus on behalf of Protagoras : 

" And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise 
man have no existence; but I say that the wise man is 
he who makes the evils which are and appear to a man, 
into goods which are and appear to him. ... I say 
that they (the wise men) are the physicians of the human 
body, and the husbandmen of plants — for the husband- 
men also take away the evil and disordered sensations 
of plants, and infuse into them good and healthy sensa- 
tions as well as true ones ; and the wise and good rhetori- 
cians make the good instead of the evil seem just to states ; 
for whatever appears to be just and fair to a state, while 



SUBJECTIVISM 299 

sanctioned by a state, is just and fair to it ; but the teacher 
of wisdom causes the good to take the place of the evil, 
both in appearance and in reality." 22 

As truth is indistinguishable from the appearance 
of truth to the individual, so good is indistinguish- 
able from a particular seeming good. The su- 
preme moral value according to this plan of life 
is the agreeable feeling tone of that dream world 
to which the individual is forever consigned. The 
possible perfection of an experience which is " re- 
duced to a swarm of impressions," and " ringed 
round " for each one of us by a " thick wall of 
personality " has been brilliantly depicted in the 
passage already quoted from Walter Pater, in 
whom the naturalistic and snbjectivistic motives 
unite. 23 If all my experience is strictly my own, 
then my good must likewise be my own. And if 
all of my experience is valid only in its instants of 
immediacy, then my best good must likewise con- 
sist in some " exquisite passion," or stirring of the 
senses. 

§ 143. But for Schopenhauer the internal 
world opens out into the boundless and unfathom- 
able sea of the universal will. If I re- 
tire from the world upon my own pri- 



Pessimism and 
Self-denial. 



Plato: Theaetetus, 167. Translation by Jowett. 
See § 121. 



300 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

vate feelings, I am still short of the true life, for 
I am asserting myself against the world. I should 
seek a sense of unison with a world whose deeper 
heart-beats I may learn to feel and adopt as the 
rhythm of my own. The folly of willing for one's 
private self is the ground of Schopenhauer's 
pessimism. 

" All willing arises from want, therefore from de- 
ficiency, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction 
of a wish ends it; yet for one wish that is satisfied there 
remain at least ten which are denied. Further, the 
desire lasts long, the demands are infinite; the satisfac- 
tion is short and scantily measured out. But even the 
final satisfaction is itself only apparent; every satisfied 
wish at once makes room for a new one, both are illusions ; 
the one is known to be so, the other not yet. No at- 
tained object of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but 
merely a fleeting gratification; it is like the alms thrown 
to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that his misery 
may be prolonged till the morrow. . . . The subject 
of willing is thus constantly stretched on the revolving 
wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the Danaids, 
is the ever-longing Tantalus." 24 

The escape from this torture and self-deception is 

possible through the same mystical experience, the 

same blending with the universe that conditions 

knowledge. 

§ 144. But though pleasant dreaming be the 

24 Schopenhauer: Op. cit. Translation by Haldane and 
Kemp, Vol. I, pp. 253-254. 



SUBJECTIVISM 301 

most consistent practical sequel to a subjectivistic 
epistemology, its individualism presents another 
The Ethics basis for life with quite different pos- 
of welfare. sibilities of emphasis. It may develop 
into an aggressive egoism of the type represented 
by the sophist Thrasymachus, in his proclamation 
that " might is right, justice the interest of the 
stronger." 25 But more commonly it is tempered 
by a conception of social interest, and serves as 
the champion of action against contemplation. 
The gospel of action is always individualistic. It 
requires of the individual a sense of his inde- 
pendence, and of the real virtue of his initiative. 
Hence those voluntarists who emphasize the many 
individual wills and decline to reduce them, after 
the manner of Schopenhauer, to a universal, may 
be said to afford a direct justification of it. It is 
true that this practical realism threatens the tena- 
bility of an epistemological idealism, but the two 
have been united, and because of their common 
emphasis upon the individual such procedure is 
not entirely inconsequential. Friedrich Paulsen, 
whose panpsychism has already been cited, is an 
excellent case in point. The only good, he main- 
tains, is " welfare," the fulfilment of those natural 
25 See Plato: Republic, Bk. I, 338. 



302 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

desires which both distinguish the individual and 
signify his continuity with all grades of being. 

"The goal at which the will aims does not consist in 
a maximum of pleasurable feelings, but in the normal 
exercise of the vital functions for which the species is 
predisposed. In the case of man the mode of life is on 
the whole determined by the nature of the historical 
unity from which the individual evolves as a member. 
Here the objective content of life, after which the will 
strives, also enters into consciousness with the progres- 
sive evolution of presentation; the type of life becomes 
a conscious ideal of life." M 

Here, contrary to the teaching of Schopenhauer, 
the good consists in individual attainment, the 
extension and fulfilment of the distinct interests 
that arise from the common fund of nature. To 
be and to do to the uttermost, to realize the maxi- 
mum from nature's investment in one's special 
capacities and powers — this is indeed the first 
principle of a morality of action. 

§ 145. But a type of ethics still further re- 
moved from the initial relativism has been adopted 
The Ethical anc ^ more or ^ ess successfully assimi- 
commumty. 2ated by subjectivistic philosophies. 
Accepting Berkeley's spirits, with their indefinite 
capacities, and likewise the stability of the ideal 
principles that underlie a God-administered world, 
26 Paulsen: Op. tit., p. 423. 



SUBJECTIVISM 303 

and morality becomes the obedience which the in- 
dividual renders to the law. The individual, free 
to act in his own right, cooperates with the pur- 
poses of the general spiritual community, whose 
laws are worthy of obedience though not coercive. 
The recognition of such a spiritual citizenship, 
entailing opportunities, duties, and obligations, 
rather than thraldom, partakes of the truth as 
well as the inadequacy of common-sense. 

§ 146. As for religion, at least two distinct 
practical appreciations of the universe have been 
The Reli ion of historically associated with this chap- 
Mysticism. | er j n philosophy. The one of these 
is the mysticism of Schopenhauer, the religious 
sequel to a universalistic voluntarism. Schopen- 
hauer's ethics, his very philosophy, is religion. 
For the good and the true are alike attainable only 
through identification with the Absolute Will. 
This consummation of life, transcending practical 
and theoretical differences, engulfing and effacing 
all qualities and all values, is like the Nirvana of 
the Orient — a positive ideal only for one who has 
appraised the apparent world at its real value. 

" Rather do we freely acknowledge that what remains 
after the entire abolition of will is for all those who are 
still full of will certainly nothing; but, conversely, to 



304 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, 
this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and 
milky- ways — is nothing." 27 

§ 147. From the union of the two motives of 
voluntarism and individualism springs another 
The Religion an( ^ a more familiar type of religion, 
Cooperation 1 ^ ia ^ °^ cooperative spiritual endeavor, 
with God. j n ^g re ijgi on f Schopenhauer the 

soul must utterly lose itself for the sake of peace ; 
here the soul must persist in its own being and 
activity for the sake of the progressive goodness 
of the world. For Schopenhauer God is the uni- 
versal solution, in which all motions cease and all 
differences disappear; here God is the General of 
moral forces. The deeper and more significant 
universe is 

"a society of rational agents, acting under the eye of 
Providence, concurring in one design to promote the 
common benefit of the whole, and conforming their 
actions to the established laws and order of the Divine 
parental wisdom: wherein each particular agent shall 
not consider himself apart, but as the member of a great 
City, whose author and founder is God: in which the 
civil laws are no other than the rules of virtue and the 
duties of religion: and where everyone's true interest is 
combined with his duty." 28 

27 Schopenhauer: Op. cit. Translation by Haldane and 
Kemp, p. 532. 

28 Berkeley: Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 138. 



SUBJECTIVISM 305 

But so uncompromising an optimism is not essen- 
tial to this religion. Its distinction lies rather in 
its acceptance of the manifest plurality of souls, 
and its appeal to the faith that is engendered by 
service. 29 As William James has said : 

" Even God's being is sacred from ours. To cooperate 
with his creation by the best and rightest response seems 
all he wants of us. In such cooperation with his pur- 
poses, not in any chimerical speculative conquest of him, 
not in any theoretical drinking of him up, must lie the 
real meaning of our destiny." 30 

28 For an interesting characterization of this type of 
religion, cf. Royce: Spirit of Modern Philosophy, p. 46. 
30 James: The Will to Believe, p. 141. 



CHAPTER X 

ABSOLUTE KEALISM 1 

§ 148. ISTo one has understood better than the 
philosopher himself that he cannot hope to be popu- 
The pwioso- l Rr with men of practical cominon- 
and r thJ aSk * sense - Indeed, it has commonly been 
Philosopher's a mat ter of pride with him. The 

Object, or the x 

Absolute. classic representation of the philoso- 
pher's faith in himself is to be found in Plato's 
" Republic." The philosopher is there portrayed 
in the famous cave simile as one who having seen 
the light itself can no longer distinguish the 
shadows which are apparent to those who sit per- 
petually in the twilight. Within the cave of 
shadows he is indeed less at his ease than those 
who have never seen the sun. But since he knows 
the source of the shadows, his knowledge surrounds 

1 By Absolute Realism is meant that system of philosophy 
which defines the universe as the absolute being, implied 
in knowledge as its final object, but assumed to be inde- 
pendent of knowledge. In the Spinozistic system this 
absolute being is conceived under the form of substance, or 
self-sufficiency; in Platonism under the form of perfection; 
and in the Aristotelian system under the form of a hierarchy 
of substances. 

306 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 307 

that of the shadow connoisseurs. And his equa- 
nimity need not suffer from the contempt of those 
whom he understands better than they understand 
themselves. The history of philosophy is due to 
the dogged persistence with which the philosopher 
has taken himself seriously and endured the poor 
opinion of the world. But the pride of the phi- 
losopher has done more than perpetuate the philo- 
sophical outlook and problem; it has led to the 
formulation of a definite philosophical conception, 
and of two great philosophical doctrines. The 
conception is that of the absolute; and the doc- 
trines are that of the absolute being, and that of 
the absolute self or mind. The former of these 
doctrines is the topic of the present chapter. 

Among the early Greeks the role of the philos- 
opher was one of superlative dignity. In point 
of knowledge he was less easily satisfied than 
other men. He thought beyond immediate prac- 
tical problems, devoting himself to a profounder 
reflection, that could not but induce in him a sense 
of superior intellectual worth. The familiar was 
not binding upon him, for his thought was eman- 
cipated from routine and superficiality. Fur- 
thermore his intellectual courage and resolution 
did not permit him to indulge in triviality, doubt, 



308 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

or paradox. He sought his own with a faith that 
could not he denied. Even Heraclitus the Dark, 
who was also called " the Weeping Philosopher," 
because he found at the very heart of nature that 
transiency which the philosophical mind seeks to 
escape, felt himself to be exalted as well as isolated 
by that insight. But this sentiment of personal 
aloofness led at once to a division of experience. 
He who knows truly belongs to another and more 
abiding world. As there is a philosophical way 
of thought, there is a philosophical way of life, and 
a philosophical object. Since the philosopher and 
the common man do not see alike, the terms of 
their experience are incommensurable. In Par- 
menides the Eleatic this motive is most strikingly 
exhibited. There is a Way of Truth which di- 
verges from the Way of Opinion. The philoso- 
pher walks the former way alone. And there is 
an object of truth, accessible only to one who takes 
this way of truth. Parmenides finds this object 
to be the content of pure affirmation. 

" One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, 
that It is. In it are very many tokens that what is, 
is uncreated and indestructible, alone, complete, im- 
movable, and without end. Nor was it ever, nor will 
it be; for now it is, all at once, a continuous one." 2 

2 Burnet: Early Greek Philosophy, p. 185. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 309 

The philosophy of Parmenides, commonly called 
the Eleatic Philosophy, is notable for this emer- 
gence of the pure concept of absolute being as the 
final object of knowledge. The philosopher aims 
to discover that which is, and so turns away from 
that which is not or that which ceases to be. The 
negative and transient aspects of experience only 
hinder him in his search for the eternal. It was 
the great Eleatic insight to realize that the out- 
come of thought is thus predetermined; that the 
answer to philosophy is contained in the question 
of philosophy. The philosopher, in that he reso- 
lutely avoids all partiality, relativity, and super- 
ficiality, must affirm a complete, universal, and 
ultimate being as the very object of that perfect 
knowledge which he means to possess. This ob- 
ject is known in the history of these philosophies 
as the infinite or absolute? 

§ 149. The Eleatic reasons somewhat as fol- 
lows. The philosopher seeks to know what is. 
The Eleatic The object of his knowledge will then 

Conception . . . 

of Being. contain as its primary and essential 
predicate, that of being. It is a step further to 
define being in terms of this essential predicate. 

3 When contrasted with the temporal realm of " genera- 
tion and decay," this ultimate object is often called the 
eternal. 



310 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Parmenides thinks of being as a power or strength, 
a positive self-maintenance to which all affirma- 
tions refer. The remainder of the Eleatic philos- 
ophy is the analysis of this concept and the proof 
of its implications. Being must persist through 
all change, and span all chasms. Before being 
there can be only nothing, which is the same as to 
say that so far as being is concerned there is no 
before. Similarly there can be no after or beyond. 
There can be no motion, change, or division of 
being, because being will be in all parts of every 
division, and in all stages of every process. 
Hence being is " uncreated and indestructible, 
alone, complete, immovable, and without end." 

The argument turns upon the application to 
being as a whole of the meaning and the implica- 
tions of only being. Being is the affirmative or 
positive. From that alone, one can derive only such 
properties as eternity or unity. For generation and 
decay and plurality may belong to that which is 
also affirmative and positive, but not to that which 
is affirmative and positive only. The Eleatic phi- 
losophy is due, then, to the determination to de- 
rive the whole of reality from the bare necessity 
of being, to cut down reality to what flows en- 
tirely from the assertion of its only known nee- 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 311 

essary aspect, that of being. We meet here in its 
simplest form a persistent rationalistic motive, the 
attempt to derive the universe from the isolation 
and analysis of its most universal character. As 
in the case of every well-defined philosophy, this 
motive is always attended by a " besetting " prob- 
lem. Here it is the accounting for what, empiri- 
cally at least, is alien to that universal character. 
And this difficulty is emphasized rather than re- 
solved by Parmenides in his designation of a limbo 
of opinion, " in which is no true belief at all," to 
which the manifold of common experience with 
all its irrelevancies can be relegated. 

§ 150. The Eleatic philosophy, enriched and 
supplemented, appears many centuries later in the 
Spinoza's rigorous rationalism of Spinoza. 4 With 

Conception . . 

of Substance, opmoza philosophy is a demonstration 
of necessities after the manner of geometry. 
Reality is to be set forth in theorems derived from 
fundamental axioms and definitions. As in the 
case of Parmenides, these necessities are the im- 
plications of the very problem of being. The phi- 
losopher's problem is made to solve itself. But 
for Spinoza that problem is more definite and 
more pregnant. The problematic being must not 
4 Holland, 1632-1677. 



312 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

only be, but must be sufficient to itself. What the 
philosopher seeks to know is primarily an intrinsic 
entity. Its nature must be independent of other 
natures, and my knowledge of it independent of my 
knowledge of anything else. Reality is something 
which need not be sought further. So construed, 
being is in Spinoza's philosophy termed substance. 
It will be seen that to define substance is to affirm 
the existence of it, for substance is so defined as 
to embody the very qualification for existence. 
Whatever exists exists under the form of substance, 
as that " which is in itself, and is conceived 
through itself: in other words, that of which a 
conception can be formed independently of any 
other conception." 5 

§ 151. There remains but one further funda- 
mental thesis for the establishment of the Spino- 
Spinoza's zistic philosophy, the thesis which main- 

ProofofGod, 

the infinite tains the exclusive existence of the one 

Substance. 

The Modes " absolutely infinite being," or God. 
Attributes. The exclusive existence of God follows 
from his existence, because of the exhaustiveness 
of his nature. His is the nature " consisting in 
infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal 
and infinite essentiality." He will contain all 
5 Spinoza: Ethics, Part I. Translation by Elwes, p. 45. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 313 

meaning, and all possible meaning, within his fixed 
and necessary constitution. It is evident that if 
such a God exist, nothing can fall outside of him. 
One such substance must be the only substance. 
But upon what grounds are we to assert God's 
existence ? 

To proceed further with Spinoza's philosophy 
we must introduce two terms which are scarcely 
less fundamental in his system than that of sub- 
stance. The one of these is " attribute," by which 
he means hind or general property; the other is 
" mode," by which he means case or individual 
thing. Spinoza's proof of God consists in show- 
ing that no single mode, single attribute, or finite 
group of modes or attributes, can be a substance ; 
but only an infinite system of all modes of all at- 
tributes. Translated into common speech this 
means that neither kinds nor cases, nor special 
groups of either, can stand alone and be of them- 
selves, but only the unity of all possible cases of 
all possible kinds. 

The argument concerning the possible substan- 
tiality of the case or individual thing is relatively 
simple. Suppose an attribute or kind, A, of which 
there are cases am 1} am 2 , am 3 , etc. The number 
of cases is never involved in the nature of the 



314 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

kind, as is seen for example in the fact that the 
definition of triangle prescribes no special num- 
ber of individual triangles. Hence am x , am 2 , am z , 
etc., must be explained by something outside of 
their nature. Their being cases of A does not ac- 
count for their existing severally. This is Spi- 
noza's statement of the argument that individual 
events, such as motions or sensations, are not self- 
dependent, but belong to a context of like events 
which are mutually dependent. 

The question of the attribute is more difficult. 
Why may not an attribute as a complete domain 
of interdependent events, itself be independent or 
substantial ? Spinoza's predecessor, Descartes, had 
maintained precisely that thesis in behalf of the 
domain of thought and the domain of space. 
Spinoza's answer rests upon the famous ontological 
argument, inherited from scholasticism and gen- 
erally accepted in the first period of modern philos- 
ophy. The evidence of existence, he declares, is 
clear and distinct conceivability. 

"For a person to say that he has a clear and distinct — 
that is, a true — idea of a substance, but that he is not 
sure whether such substance exists, would be the same 
as if he said that he had a true idea, but was not sure 
whether or no it was false." 8 

8 Ibid., p. 49. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 315 

Now we can form a clear and distinct idea of an 
absolutely infinite being that shall have all possible 
attributes. This idea is a well-recognized stand- 
ard and object of reference for thought. But it is 
a conception which is highly qualified, not only 
through its clearness and distinctness, but also 
through its abundance of content. It affirms itself 
therefore with a certainty that surpasses any other 
certainty, because it is supported by each and 
every other certainty, and even by the residuum 
of possibility. If any intelligible meaning be 
permitted to affirm itself, so much the more irre- 
sistible is the claim of this infinitely rich mean- 
ing. Since every attribute contributes to its valid- 
ity, the being with infinite attributes is infinitely 
or absolutely valid. The conclusion of the argu- 
ment is now obvious. If the being constituted by 
the infinite attributes exists, it swallows up all 
possibilities and exists exclusively. 

§ 152. The vulnerable point in Spinoza's argu- 
ment can thus be expressed: that which is im- 
The Limits of portant is questionable, and that which 
Argument * s unquestionable is of doubtful im- 
for God. portance. Have I indeed a clear and 

distinct idea of an absolutely infinite being? 
The answer turns upon the meaning of the 



316 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

phrase " idea of." It is true I can add to such 
meaning as I apprehend the thought of possible 
other meaning, and suppose the whole to have 
a definiteness and systematic unity like that 
of the triangle. But such an idea is prob- 
lematic. I am compelled to use the term " pos- 
sible," and so to confess the failure of definite 
content to measure up to my idea. My idea of an 
absolutely infinite being is like my idea of a Uni- 
versal language : I can think of it, but I cannot 
think it out, for lack of data or because of the con- 
flicting testimony of other data. If I mean the 
infinity of my being to be a term of inclusiveness, 
and to insist that the all must be, and that there 
can be nothing not included in the all, I can 
scarcely be denied. But it is reasonable to doubt 
the importance of such a truth. If, on the other 
hand, I mean that my infinite being shall have 
the compactness and organic unity of a triangle, 
I must admit that such a being is indeed prob- 
lematic. The degree to which the meaning of the 
part is dependent upon the meaning of the whole, 
or the degree to which the geometrical analogy is 
to be preferred to the analogy of aggregates, like 
the events within a year, is a problem that falls 
quite outside Spinoza's fundamental arguments. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 317 

§ 153. But the advance of Spinoza over the 
Eleatics must not be lost sight of. The modern 
Spinoza's philosopher has so conceived being as 

Provision for . . , . , . . , 

the Finite. to provide for parts withm an individ- 
ual unity. The geometrical analogy is a most 
illuminating one, for it enables us to understand 
how manyness may be indispensable to a being that 
is essentially unitary. The triangle as triangle 
is one. But it could not be such without sides and 
angles. The unity is equally necessary to the 
parts, for sides and angles of a triangle could not 
be such without an arrangement governed by the 
nature triangle. The whole of nature may be 
similarly conceived : as the reciprocal necessity of 
natura naturans, or nature defined in respect of 
its unity, and natura naturata, or nature specified 
in detail. There is some promise here of a recon- 
ciliation of the Way of Opinion with the Way of 
Truth. Opinion would be a gathering of detail, 
truth a comprehension of the intelligible unity. 
Both would be provided for through the considera- 
tion that whatever is complete and necessary must 
be made up of incompletenesses that are necessary 
to it. 

§ 154. This consideration, however, does not 
receive its most effective formulation in Spinoza. 



318 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

The isolation of the parts, the actual severalty 
and irrelevance of the modes, still presents a grave 
Transition to problem. Is there a kind of whole to 

Teleological 

conceptions, which not only parts but fragments, or 
parts in their very incompleteness, are indispen- 
sable ? This would seem to be true of a progres- 
sion or development, since that would require both 
perfection as its end, and degrees of imperfection 
as its stages. Spinoza was prevented from making 
much of this idea by his rejection of the principle 
of teleology. He regarded appreciation or valu- 
ation as a projection of personal bias. " Nature 
has no particular goal in view," and " final causes 
are mere human figments." " The perfection of 
things is to be reckoned only from their own nature 
and power." 7 The philosophical method which 
Spinoza here repudiates, the interpretation of the 
world in moral terms, is Platonism, an indepen- 
dent and profoundly important movement, belong- 
ing to the same general realistic type with Eleati- 
cism and Spinozism. Absolute being is again the 
fundamental conception. Here, however, it is 
conceived that being is primarily not affirmation 
or self-sufficiency, but the good or ideal. There 
are few great metaphysical systems that have not 
7 Ibid., pp. 77, 81. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 319 

been deeply influenced by Platonism; hence the 
importance of understanding it in its purity. To 
this end we must return again to the early Greek 
conception of the philosopher ; for Platonism, like 
Eleaticism, is a sequel to the philosopher's self- 
consciousness. 

§ 155. Although the first Greek philosophers, 
such men as Thales, Heraelitus, Parmenides, and 
Early Greek Empedocles, were clearly aware of their 
nSfsS?'" distinction and hi g h calling, it by no 
critical. means follows that they were good 

judges of themselves. Their sense of intellectual 
power was unsuspecting; and they praised phi- 
losophy without definitely raising the question of 
its meaning. They were like unskilled players 
who try all the stops and scales of an organ, 
and know that somehow they can make a music 
that exceeds the noises, monotones or simple 
melodies of those who play upon lesser instru- 
ments. They knew their power rather than 
their instrument or their art. The first philoso- 
phers, in short, were self-conscious but not self- 
critical. 

§ 156. The immediately succeeding phase in the 
history of Greek philosophy was a curtailment, but 



320 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

only in the most superficial sense a criticism, of 

the activity of the philosopher. In the Periclean 

curtailment of A g e philosophy suffered more from in- 
Phiiosophyia attention tlian f rom refutation. The 

the Age of 

the sophists, scepticism of the sophists, who were the 
knowing men of this age, was not so much convic- 
tion as indisposition. They failed to recognize the 
old philosophical problem; it did not appeal to 
them as a genuine problem. The sophists were the 
intellectual men of an age of humanism, individu- 
alism, and secularism. These were years in which 
the circle of human society, the state with its in- 
stitutions, citizenship with its manifold activities 
and interests, bounded the horizon of thought. 
What need to look beyond ? Life was not a prob- 
lem, but an abundant opportunity and a sense of 
capacity. The world was not a mystery, but a 
place of entertainment and a sphere of action. Of 
this the sophists were faithful witnesses. In 
their love of novelty, irreverence, impressionism, 
elegance of speech, and above all in their praise 
of individual efficiency, they preached and pan- 
dered to their age. Their public, though it loved 
to abuse them, was the greatest sophist of them 
all — brilliant and capricious, incomparably rich in 
all but wisdom. The majority belonged to what 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 321 

Plato called " the sight-loving, art-loving, busy 
class." This is an age, then, when the man of 
practical common-sense is preeminent, and the 
philosopher with his dark sayings has passed away. 
The pride of wisdom has given way to the pride 
of power and the pride of cleverness. The many 
men pursue the many goods of life, and there is no 
spirit among them all who, sitting apart in con- 
templation, wonders at the meaning of the whole. 
§ 157. But in their midst there moved a strange 
prophet, whom they mistook for one of themselves. 
Socrates and Socrates was not one who prayed in the 
the self- wilderness, but a man of the streets and 

criticism of the " 

Philosopher. tlie mar ket-place, who talked rather 
more incessantly than the rest, and apparently with 
less right. He did not testify to the truth, but 
pleaded ignorance in extenuation of an exasperat- 
ing habit of asking questions. There was, how- 
ever, a humor and a method in his innocence that 
arrested attention. He was a formidable adversary 
in discussion from his very irresponsibility ; and he 
was especially successful with the more rhetorical 
sophists because he chose his own weapons, and 
substituted critical analysis, question and answer, 
for the long speeches to which these teachers were 
habituated by their profession. He appeared to 



322 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

be governed by an insatiable inquisitiveness, and 
a somewhat malicious desire to discredit those 
who spoke with authority. 

But to those who knew him better, and especially 
to Plato, who knew him best, Socrates was at once 
the sweetest and most compelling spirit of his age. 
There was a kind of truth in the quality of his 
character. He was perhaps the first of all reverent 
men. In the presence of conceit his self -deprecia- 
tion was ironical, but in another presence it was 
most genuine, and his deepest spring of thought 
and action. This other presence was his own 
ideal. Socrates was sincerely humble because, ex- 
pecting so much of philosophy, he saw his own de- 
ficiency. Unlike the unskilled player, he did not 
seek to make music ; but he loved music, and knew 
that such music as is indeed music was beyond his 
power. On the other hand he was well aware of 
his superiority to those in whom self-satisfaction 
was possible because they had no conception of the 
ideal. Of such he could say in truth that they 
did not know enough even to realize the extent of 
their ignorance. The world has long been famil- 
iar with the vivid portrayal of the Socratic con- 
sciousness which is contained in Plato's " Apol- 
ogy." Socrates had set out in life with the opinion 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 323 

that his was an age of exceptional enlightenment. 
But as he came to know men he found that after 
all no one of them really knew what he was about. 
Each " sight-loving, art-loving, busy " man was 
quite blind to the meaning of life. While he was 
capable of practical achievement, his judgments 
concerning the real virtue of his achievements 
were conventional and ungrounded, a mere reflec- 
tion of tradition and opinion. When asked con- 
cerning the meaning of life, or the ground of his 
opinions, he was thrown into confusion or aggra- 
vated to meaningless reiteration. Such men, Soc- 
rates reflected, were both unwise and confirmed 
in their folly through being unconscious of it. 
Because he knew that vanity is vanity, that opin- 
ion is indeed mere opinion, Socrates felt himself 
to be the wisest man in a generation of dogged 
unwisdom. 

§ 158. It is scarcely necessary to point out that 
this insight, however negatively it be used, is a 
Socrates's revelation of positive knowledge. Her- 
seu-criticism ac ii tus an( j p a rmenides claimed to 

a Prophecy 

of Truth. know; Socrates disclaimed knowledge 
for reasons. Like all real criticism this is at once 
a confounding of error and a prophecy of truth. 
The truth so discovered is indeed not ordinary 



324 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

truth concerning historical or physical things, but 
not on that account less significant and necessary. 
This truth, it will also he admitted, is virtually 
rather than actually set forth by Socrates himself. 
He knew that life has some meaning which those 
who live with conviction desire at heart to realize, 
and that knowledge has principles with which 
those who speak with conviction intend to be con- 
sistent. There is, in short, a rational life and a 
rational discourse. Furthermore, a rational life 
will be a life wisely directed to the end of the 
good ; and a rational discourse one constructed with 
reference to the real natures of things, and the 
necessities which flow from these natures. But 
Socrates did not conclusively define either the 
meaning of life or the form of perfect knowledge. 
He testified to the necessity of some such truths, 
and his testimony demonstrated both the blindness 
of his contemporaries and also his own deficiency. 
§ 159. The character and method of Socrates 
have their best foil in the sophists, but their 
The Historical bearing on the earlier philosophers is 

Preparation 

for Plato. for our purposes even more instructive. 
Unlike Socrates these philosophers had not made 
a study of the task of the philosopher. They were 
philosophers — " spectators of all time and all ex- 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 325 

istence " ; but they were precritical or dogmatic 
philosophers, to whom it had not occurred to define 
the requirements of philosophy. They knew no 
perfect knowledge other than their own actual 
knowledge. They defined being and interpreted 
life without reflecting upon the quality of the 
knowledge whose object is being, or the quality of 
insight that would indeed be practical wisdom. 
But when through Socrates the whole philosophical 
prospect is again revealed after the period of 
humanistic concentration, it is as an ideal whose 
possibilities, whose necessities, are conceived be- 
fore they are realized. Socrates celebrates the role 
of the philosopher without assigning it to himself. 
The new philosophical object is the philosopher 
himself; and the new insight a knowledge of 
knowledge itself. These three types of intellectual 
procedure, dogmatic speculation concerning being, 
humanistic interest in life, and the self-criticism of 
thought, form the historical preparation for Plato, 
the philosopher who defined being a the ideal of 
thought, and upon this ground interpreted life. 

There is no more striking case in history of the 
subtle continuity of thought than the relation 
between Plato and his master Socrates. The 
wonder of it is due to the absence of any formula- 



326 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tion of doctrine on the part of Socrates himself. 
He only lived and talked ; and yet Plato created a 
system of philosophy in which he is faithfully 
embodied. The form of embodiment is the dia- 
logue, in which the talking of Socrates is perpetu- 
ated and conducted to profounder issues, and in 
which his life is both rendered and interpreted. 
But as the vehicle of Plato's thought preserves and 
makes perfect the Socratic method, so the thought 
itself begins with the Socratic motive and remains 
to the end an expression of it. The presentiment 
of perfect knowledge which distinguished Socrates 
from his contemporaries becomes in Plato the clear 
vision of a realm of ideal truth. 

§ 160. Plato begins his philosophy with the 
philosopher and the philosopher's interest. The 
piatonism: philosopher is a lover, who like all lov- 

Absoiute aS ideai ers lon S s for the beautiful. But he is 
or Good. ^ e sll p reme lover, for he loves not the 

individual beautiful object but the Absolute 
Beauty itself. He is a lover too in that he does 
not possess, but somehow apprehends his object 
from afar. Though imperfect, he seeks perfec- 
tion; though standing like all his fellows in the 
twilight of half-reality, he faces toward the sun. 
Now it is the fundamental proposition of the Pla- 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 327 

tonic philosophy that reality is the sun itself, or 
the perfection whose possession every wise thinker 
covets, whose presence would satisfy every long- 
ing of experience. The real is that beloved object 
which is " truly beautiful, delicate, perfect, and 
blessed." There is both a serious ground for such 
an affirmation and an important truth in its mean- 
ing. The ground is the evident incompleteness of 
every special judgment concerning experience. 
We understand only in part, and we know that we 
understand only in part. What we discover is 
real enough for practical purposes, but even com- 
mon-sense questions the true reality of its objects. 
Special judgments seem to terminate our thought 
abruptly and arbitrarily. We give " the best 
answer we can," but such answers do not come as 
the completion of our thinking. Our thought is 
in some sense surely a seeking, and it would appear 
that we are not permitted to rest and be satisfied 
at any stage of it. If we do so we are like the 
sophists — blind to our own ignorance. But it is 
equally true that our thought is straightforward 
and progressive. We are not permitted to return 
to earlier stages, but must push on to that which is 
not less, but more, than what we have as yet found. 
There is good hope, then, of understanding what 



328 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the ideal may be from our knowledge of the direc- 
tion which it impels us to follow. 

But to understand Plato's conception of the 
progression of experience we must again catch up 
the Socratic strain which he weaves into every 
theme. For Socrates, student of life and man- 
kind, all objects were objects of interest, and all 
interests practical interests. One is ignorant 
when one does not know the good of things ; opin- 
ionative when one rates things by conventional 
standards; wise when one knows their real good. 
In Platonism this practical interpretation of ex- 
perience appears in the principle that the object 
of perfect knowledge is the good. The nature of 
things which one seeks to know better is the good 
of things, the absolute being which is the goal of 
all thinking is the very good itself. Plato does 
not use the term good in any merely utilitarian 
sense. Indeed it is very significant that for Plato 
there is no cleavage between theoretical and prac- 
tical interests. To be morally good is to know the 
good, to set one's heart on the true object of affec- 
tion ; and to be theoretically sound is to understand 
perfection. The good itself is the end of every 
aim, that in which all interests converge. Hence 
it cannot be defined, as might a special good, in 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 329 

terms of the fulfilment of a set of concrete condi- 
tions, but only in terms of the sense or direction 
of all purposes. The following passage occurs in 
the " Symposium " : 

"The true order of going or being led by others to the 
things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps 
along which he mounts upward for the sake of that 
other beauty, going from one to two, and from two to 
all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and 
from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions 
he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last 
knows what the essence of beauty is." 8 

§ 161. There is, then, a " true order of going," 
and an order that leads from one to many, from 
The Progres- thence to f orms, from thence to moral- 
sion of • . an( ^ £ rom thence to the general ob- 

Expenence «/ " P 

toward God. j ectg of thoxight or the ideas. In the 
" Republic," where the proper education of the phi- 
losopher is in question, it is proposed that he shall 
study arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and dia- 
lectic. Thus in each case mathematics is the first 
advance in knowledge, and dialectic the nearest to 
perfection. Most of Plato's examples are drawn 
from mathematics. This science replaces the va- 
riety and vagueness of the forms of experience 
with clear, unitary, definite, and eternal natures, 

8 Plato: Symposium, 211. Translation by Jowett. 



330 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

such as the number and the geometrical figure. 
Thus certain individual things are approximately 
triangular, but subject to alteration, and indefi- 
nitely many. On the other hand the triangle as 
defined by geometry is the fixed and unequivocal 
nature or idea which such experiences suggest ; and 
the philosophical mind will at once pass to it from 
these. But the mathematical objects are them- 
selves not thoroughly understood when understood 
only in mathematical terms, for the foundations 
of mathematics are arbitrary. And the same is 
true of all the so-called special sciences. Even the 
scientists themselves, says Plato, 

" only dream about being, but never can behold the 
waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses 
they use unexamined, and are unable to give an ac- 
count of them. For when a man knows not his own 
first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate 
steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, 
how can he imagine that such a conventional statement 
will ever become science?" 8 

Within the science of dialectics we are to under- 
stand the connections and sequences of ideas them- 
selves, in the hope of eliminating every arbitrari- 
ness and conventionality within a system of truth 
that is pure and self-luminous rationality. To 

8 Plato: Republic, 533. Translation by Jowett. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 331 

this science, which is the great interest of his 
later years, Plato contributes only incomplete 
studies and experiments. We must be satisfied 
with the playful answer with which, in the " Re- 
public," he replies to Glaucon's entreaty that " he 
proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to 
the chief strain, and describe that in like man- 
ner " : " Dear Glaucon, you will not be able to fol- 
low me here, though I would do my best." 

But a philosophical system has been projected. 
The real is that perfect significance or meaning 
which thought and every interest suggests, and 
toward which there is in experience an appreciable 
movement. It is this significance which makes 
things what they really are, and which constitutes 
our understanding of them. In itself it tran- 
scends the steps which lead to it ; " for God," says 
Plato, " mingles not with men." But it is never- 
theless the meaning of human life. And this we 
can readily conceive. The last word may trans- 
form the sentence from nonsense into sense, and 
it would be true to say that its sense mingles not 
with nonsense. Similarly the last touch of the 
brush may transform an inchoate mass of color 
into a picture, disarray into an object of beauty ; 
and its beauty mingles not with ugliness. So life, 



332 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

when it finally realizes itself, obtains a new and 
incommensurable quality of perfection in which 
humanity is transformed into deity. There is 
frankly no provision for imperfection in such a 
world. In his later writings Plato sounds his 
characteristic note less frequently, and permits the 
ideal to create a cosmos through the admixture of 
matter. But in his moment of inspiration, the 
Platonist will have no sense for the imperfect. It 
is the darkness behind his back, or the twilight 
through which he passes on his way to the light. 
He will use even the beauties of earth only " as 
steps along which he mounts upward for the sake 
of that other beauty." 

§ 162. We have met, then, with two distinct 
philosophical doctrines which arise from the con- 
Aristotie's ception of the absolute, or the philoso- 

Hierarchy 

of Substances pher's peculiar object : the doctrine of 

in Relation . 

to piatonism. the absolute being or substance, and 
that of the absolute ideal or good. Both doctrines 
are realistic in that they assume reality to be de- 
monstrated or revealed, rather than created, by 
knowledge. Both are rationalistic in that they 
develop a system of philosophy from the problem 
of philosophy, or deduce a definition of reality 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 333 

from the conception of reality. There remains a 
third doctrine of the same type — the philosophy 
of Aristotle, the most elaborately constructed sys- 
tem of Greek antiquity, and the most potent in- 
fluence exerted upon the Scholastic Philosophy of 
the long mediaeval period. This philosophy was 
rehabilitated in the eighteenth century by Leibniz, 
the brilliant librarian of the court of Hanover. 
The extraordinary comprehensiveness of Aris- 
totle's philosophy makes it quite impossible to ren- 
der here even a general account of it. There is 
scarcely any human discipline that does not to some 
extent draw upon it. We are concerned only with 
the central principles of the metaphysics. 

Upon the common ground of rationalism and 
realism, Plato and Aristotle are complementary in 
temper, method, and principle. Plato's is the gen- 
ius of inspiration and fertility, Aristotle's the 
genius of erudition, mastery, and synthesis. In 
form, Plato's is the gift of expression, Aristotle's 
the gift of arrangement. Plato was born and 
bred an aristocrat, and became the lover of the 
best — the uncompromising purist; Aristotle is 
middle-class, and limitlessly wide, hospitable, and 
patient in his interests. Thus while both are 
speculative and acute, Plato's mind is intensive 



334 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

and profound, Aristotle's extensive and orderly. 
It was inevitable, then, that Aristotle should find 
Plato one-sided. The philosophy of the ideal is 
not worldly enough to be true. It is a religion 
rather than a theory of reality. Aristotle, how- 
ever, would not renounce it, but construe it that 
it may better provide for nature and history. 
This is the significance of his new terminology. 
Matter, to which Plato reluctantly concedes some 
room as a principle of degradation in the uni- 
verse, is now admitted to good standing. Mat- 
ter or material is indispensable to being as 
its potentiality or that out of which it is consti- 
tuted. The ideal, on the other hand, loses its ex- 
clusive title to the predicate of reality, and becomes 
the form, or the determinate nature which exists 
only in its particular embodiments. The being 
or substance is the concrete individual, of which 
these are the abstracted aspects. Aristotle's 
" form," like Plato's " idea," is a teleological prin- 
ciple. The essential nature of the object is its 
perfection. It is furthermore essential to the ob- 
ject that it should strive after a higher perfection. 
With Aristotle, however, the reality is not the 
consummation of the process, the highest perfec- 
tion in and for itself, but the very hierarchy of 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 335 

objects that ascends toward it. The highest per- 
fection, or God, is not itself coextensive with 
being, but the final cause of being — that on account 
of which the whole progression of events takes 
place. Reality is the development with all of its 
ascending stages from the maximum of potential- 
ity, or matter, to the maximum of actuality, or 
God the pure form. 

§ 163. To understand the virtue of this philoso- 
phy as a basis for the reconciliation of different 
TheAristote- interests, we must recall the relation 

lian Philos- 
ophy as a between Plato and Spinoza. Their 

Reconcilia- 
tion of Plato- characteristic difference appears to the 

nism and . ... 

Spinozism. best advantage in connection with 
mathematical truth. Both regarded geometry as 
the best model for philosophical thinking, but for 
different reasons. Spinoza prized geometry for 
its necessity, and proposed to extend it. His 
philosophy is the attempt to formulate a geometry 
of being, which shall set forth the inevitable cer- 
tainties of the universe. Plato, on the other 
hand, prized geometry rather for its definition of 
types, for its knowledge of pure or perfect natures 
such as the circle and triangle, which in imme- 
diate experience are only approximated. His 
philosophy defines reality similarly as the absolute 



336 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

perfection. Applied to nature Spinozism is me- 
chanical, and looks for necessary laws, while 
Platonism is teleological, and looks for adaptation 
and significance. Aristotle's position is inter- 
mediate. With Plato he affirms that the good is 
the ultimate principle. But this very principle is 
conceived to govern a universe of substances, each 
of which maintains its own proper being, and all 
of which are reciprocally determined in their 
changes. Final causes dominate nature, but work 
through efficient causes. Reality is not pure per- 
fection, as in Platonism, nor the indifferent neces- 
sity, as in Spinozism, but the system of beings 
necessary to the complete progression toward the 
highest perfection. The Aristotelian philosophy 
promises, then, to overcome both the hard realism 
of Parmenides and Spinoza, and also the super- 
naturalism of Plato. 

§ 164. But it promises, furthermore, to remedy 
the defect common to these two doctrines, the very 
Leibniz's Ap- besetting problem of this whole type of 

plication of 

the Conception philosophy. That problem, as has been 

of Develop- 
ment to the seen, is to provide for the imperfect 

Problem of . . 1 . 

imperfection, withm the perfect, lor the temporal in- 
cidents of nature and history within the eternal 
being. Many absolutist philosophers have de- 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 337 

clared the explanation of this realm to be impos- 
sible, and have contented themselves with calling 
it the realm of opinion or appearance. And this 
realm of opinion or appearance has been used as a 
proof of the absolute. Zeno, the pupil of Par- 
menides, was the first to elaborate what have since 
come to be known as the paradoxes of the empirical 
world. Most of these paradoxes turn upon the 
infinite extension and divisibility of space and 
time. Zeno was especially interested in the diffi- 
culty of conceiving motion, which involves both 
space and time, and thought himself to have de- 
monstrated its absurdity and impossibility. 10 His 
argument is thus the complement of Parmenides's 
argument for the indivisible and unchanging sub- 
stance. Now the method which Zeno here adopts 
may be extended to cover the whole realm of nat- 
ure and history. We should then be dialectically 
driven from this realm to take refuge in absolute 
being. But the empirical world is not destroyed 
by disparagement, and cannot long lack champions 
even among the absolutists themselves. The rec- 
onciliation of nature and history with the abso- 
lute being became the special interest of Leibniz, 
the great modern Aristotelian. As a scientist and 

10 See Burnet: Op. cit., pp. 322-333. 



338 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

man of affairs, he was profoundly dissatisfied with 
Spinoza's resolution of nature, the human indi- 
vidual, and the human society into the universal 
being. He became an advocate of individualism 
while retaining the general aim and method of 
rationalism. 

Like Aristotle, Leibniz attributes reality to in- 
dividual substances, which he calls " monads " ; 
and like Aristotle he conceives these monads to 
compose an ascending order, with God, the monad 
of monads, as its dominating goal. 

" Furthermore, every substance is like an entire world 
and like a mirror of God, or indeed of the whole world 
which it portrays, each one in its own fashion; almost 
as the same city is variously represented according to 
the various situations of him who is regarding it. Thus 
the universe is multiplied in some sort as many times 
as there are substances, and the glory of God is multiplied 
in the same way by as many wholly different representa- 
tions of his works." 11 

The very " glory of God," then, requires the in- 
numerable finite individuals with all their char- 
acteristic imperfections, that the universe may 
lack no possible shade or quality of perspective. 
§ 165. But the besetting problem is in fact not 

11 Leibniz: Discourse on Metaphysics. Translation by 
Montgomery, p. 15. 

In so far as the monads are spiritual this doctrine tends 
to be subjectivistic. Cf. Chap. IX. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 339 

solved, and is one of the chief incentives to that 
other philosophy of absolutism which defines an 
The Problem absolute spirit or mind. Both Aristotle 
tilii Remains anc ^ Leibniz undertake to make the 
Unsolved. jDerfection which determines the order 
of the hierarchy of substances, at the same time 
the responsible author of the whole hierarchy. In 
this case the dilemma is plain. If the divine form 
or the divine monad be other than the stages that 
lead up to it, these latter cannot be essential to it, 
for God is by definition absolutely self-sufficient. 
If, on the other hand, God is identical with the 
development in its entirety, then two quite incom- 
mensurable standards of perfection determine the 
supremacy of the divine nature, that of the whole 
and that of the highest parts of the whole. The 
union of these two and the definition of a perfec- 
tion which may be at once the development and its 
goal, is the task of absolute idealism. 

§ 166. Of the two fundamental questions of 
epistemology, absolute realism answers the one 
Absolute explicitly, the other implicitly. As re- 

E^emoio s P^cts the source of the most valid 
Rationalism, knowledge, Parmenides, Plato, Aris- 
totle, Spinoza are all agreed: true knowledge is 



340 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the work of reason, of pure intellection. Plato 
is the great exponent of dialectic, or the reciprocal 
affinities and necessities of ideas. Aristotle is the 
founder of deductive logic. Spinoza proposes to 
consider even " human actions and desires " as 
though he were " concerned with lines, planes, and 
solids." Empirical data may be the occasion, but 
cannot be the ground of the highest knowledge. 
According to Leibniz, 

" it seems that necessary truths, such as we find in pure 
mathematics, and especially in arithmetic and geometry, 
must have principles whose proof does not depend upon 
instances, nor, consequently, upon the witness of the 
senses, although without the senses it would never have 
come into our heads to think of them." 12 

§ 167. The answers which these philosophies 
give to the question of the relation between the 
The Relation state of knowledge and its object, divide 

of Thought 

and its object them into two groups. Among the an- 

in Absolute 

Realism. cients reason is regarded as the means 
of emancipation from the limitations of the pri- 
vate mind. " The sleeping turn aside each into 
a world of his own," but " the waking " — the wise 
men — " have one and the same world." What the 
individual knows belongs to himself only in so 

12 Leibniz: New Essays on the Human Understanding. 
Translation by Latta, p. 363. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 341 

far as it is inadequate. Hence for Plato the ideas 
are not the attributes of a mind, but that self-sub- 
sistent truth to which, in its moments of insight, 
a mind may have access. Opinion is " my own," 
the truth is being. The position of Aristotle is 
equally clear. "Actual knowledge," he main- 
tains, " is identical with its object." 

Spinoza and Leibniz belong to another age. 
Modern philosophy began with a new emphasis 
upon self-consciousness. In his celebrated argu- 
ment — " I think, hence I am " (cogito ergo sum) 
— Descartes established the independent and sub- 
stantial reality of the thinking activity. The " I 
think " is recognized as in itself a fundamental 
being, known intuitively to the thinker himself. 
Now although Spinoza and Leibniz are finally de- 
termined by the same motives that obtain in the 
cases of Plato and Aristotle, they must reckon with 
this new distinction between the thinker and his 
object. The result in the case of Spinoza is the 
doctrine of " parallelism," in which mind is de- 
fined as an " infinite attribute " of substance, an 
aspect or phase coextensive with the whole of 
being. The result in the case of Leibniz is his 
doctrine of " representation " and " pre-established 
harmony," whereby each monadic substance is in 



342 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

itself an active spiritual entity, and belongs to the 
universe through its knowledge of a specific stage 
of the development of the universe. But both 
Spinoza and Leibniz subordinate such conceptions 
as these to the fundamental identity that pervades 
the whole. With Spinoza the attributes belong 
to the same absolute substance, and with Leibniz 
the monads represent the one universe. And with 
both, finally, the perfection of knowledge, or the 
knowledge of God, is indistinguishable from its 
object, God himself. The epistemological subtle- 
ties peculiar to these philosophers are not stable 
doctrines, but render inevitable either a return to 
the simpler and bolder realism of the Greeks, or 
a passing over into the more radical and systematic 
doctrine of absolute idealism. 

§ 168. We have met with two general motives, 
both of which are subordinated to the doctrine of 
The stoic and an absolute being postulated and sought 
Etwcs 1 ? h J philosophy. The one of these mo- 
Necessity. tives leads to the conception of the ab- 
solutely necessary and immutable substance, the 
other to the conception of a consummate perfec- 
tion. There is an interpretation of life appropri- 
ate to each of these conceptions. Both agree in 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 343 

regarding life seriously, in defining reason or phi- 
losophy as the highest human activity, and in em- 
phasizing the identity of the individual's good 
with the good of the universe. But there are 
striking differences of tone and spirit. 

Although the metaphysics of the Stoics have 
various affiliations, the Stoic code of morality is 
the true practical sequel to the Eleatic-Spinozistic 
view of the world. The Stoic is one who has set 
his affections on the eternal being. He asks 
nothing of it for himself, but identifies himself 
with it. The saving grace is a sense of real- 
ity. The virtuous man is not one who remakes 
the world, or draws upon it for his private 
uses ; even less one who rails against it, or com- 
plains that it has used him ill. He is rather one 
who recognizes that there is but one really valid 
claim, that of the universe itself. But he not only 
submits to this claim on account of its superiority ; 
he makes it his own. The discipline of Stoicism 
is the regulation of the individual will to the 
end that it may coincide with the universal will. 
There is a part of man by virtue of which he is 
satisfied with what things are, whatever they be. 
That part, designated by the Stoics as " the ruling 
part," is the reason. In so far as man seeks to 



344 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

understand the laws and natures which actually 
prevail, he cannot be discontented with anything 
whatsoever that may be known to him. 

" For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot 
desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield 
absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is 
true : wherefore, in so far as we have a right understand- 
ing of these things, the endeavor of the better part of our- 
selves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole." 13 

In agreement with this teaching of Spinoza's is the 
famous Stoic formula to the effect that " nothing 
can happen contrary to the will of the wise man," 
who is free through his very acquiescence. If rea- 
son be the proper " ruling part," the first step in 
the moral life is the subordination of the appeti- 
tive nature and the enthronement of reason. One 
who is himself rational will then recognize the 
fellowship of all rational beings, and the unitary 
and beneficent rationality of the entire universe. 
The highest morality is thus already upon the 
plane of religion. 

§ 169. With Spinoza and the Stoics, the per- 
fection of the individual is reduced to what the 
The Platonic universe requires of him. The good 
Perfection. man is willing to be whatever he must 

13 Spinoza: Op. cit., Part IV. Translation by Elwes, 
p. 243. 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 345 

be, for the sake of the whole with which through 
reason he is enabled to identify himself. With 
Plato and Aristotle the perfection of the individ- 
ual himself is commended, that the universe may 
abound in perfection. The good man is the ideal 
man — the expression of the type. And how dif- 
ferent the quality of a morality in keeping with 
this principle ! The virtues which Plato enu- 
merates — temperance, courage, wisdom, and jus- 
tice — compose a consummate human nature. He 
is thinking not of the necessities but of the possi- 
bilities of life. Knowledge of the truth will 
indeed be the best of human living, but knowledge 
is not prized because it can reconcile man to his 
limitations; it is the very overflowing of his cup 
of life. The youth are to 

" dwell in the land of health, amid fair sights and sounds; 
and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will visit the eye 
and ear, like a healthful breeze from a purer region, and 
insensibly draw the soul even in childhood into harmony 
with the beauty of reason." 14 

Aristotle's account of human perfection is more 
circumstantial and more prosaic. " The function 
of man is an activity of soul in accordance with 
reason," and his happiness or well-being will con- 

14 Plato: Op. cit., 401. 



346 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

sist in the fulness of rational living. But such 
fulness requires a sphere of life that will call forth 
and exercise the highest human capacities. Aris- 
totle frankly pronounces " external goods " to be 
indispensable, and happiness to be therefore " a 
gift of the gods." The rational man will acquire 
a certain exquisiteness or finesse of action, a 
" mean " of conduct ; and this virtue will be diver- 
sified through the various relations into which he 
must enter, and the different situations which he 
must meet. He will be not merely brave, temper- 
ate, and just, as Plato would have him, but liberal, 
magnificent, gentle, truthful, witty, friendly, and 
in all self-respecting or high-minded. In addi- 
tion to these strictly moral virtues, he will possess 
the intellectual virtues of prudence and wisdom, 
the resources of art and science; and will finally 
possess the gift of insight, or intuitive reason. 
Speculation will be his highest activity, and the 
mark of his kinship with the gods who dwell in 
the perpetual contemplation of the truth. 
The Religion § 170. Aristotle's ethics expresses the 

of Fulfilment, 

and the Re- buoyancy of the ancient world, when 

ligion of Re- ...... 

nunciation. the individual does not feel himself 
oppressed by the eternal reality, but rejoices in it. 
He is not too conscious of his sufferings to be 



ABSOLUTE REALISM 347 

disinterested in his admiration and wonder. It 
is this which distinguishes the religion of Plato 
and Aristotle from that of the Stoics and Spinoza. 
With both alike, religion consists not in making the 
world, but in contemplating it ; not in cooperating 
with God,' but in worshipping him. Plato and 
Aristotle, however, do not find any antagonism 
between the ways of God and the natural inter- 
ests of men. God does not differ from men save 
in his exalted perfection. The contemplation and 
worship of him comes as the final and highest stage 
of a life which is organic and continuous through- 
out. The love of God is the natural love when 
it has found its true object. 

" For he who has been instructed thus far in the things 
of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due 
order and succession, when he comes toward the end 
will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty — 
and this, Socrates, is that final cause of all our former 
toils, which in the first place is everlasting — not growing 
and decaying, or waxing and waning; in the next place 
not fair in one point of view and foul in another, . . . 
or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part 
of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, 
nor existing in any other being; . . . but beauty 
only, absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which 
without diminution and without increase, or any change, 
is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties 
of all other things." 15 

15 Plato: Symposium, 210-211. Translation by Jo wett. 



348 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

The religion of Spinoza is the religion of one 
who has renounced the favor of the universe. 
He was deprived early in life of every benefit of 
fortune, and set out to find the good which required 
no special dispensation but only the common lot 
and the common human endowment. He found 
that good to consist in the conviction of the neces- 
sity, made acceptable through the supremacy of 
the understanding. The like faith of the Stoics 
makes of no account the difference of fortune 
between Marcus the emperor and Epictetus the 
slave. 

" For two reasons, then, it is right to be content with 
that which happens to thee; the one because it was done 
for thee and prescribed for thee, and in a manner had 
reference to thee, originally from the most ancient causes 
spun with thy destiny; and the other because even that 
which comes severally to every man is to the power 
which administers the universe a cause of felicity and 
perfection, nay even of its very continuance. For the 
integrity of the whole is mutilated, if thou cuttest off 
anything whatever from the conjunction and the con- 
tinuity either of the parts or of the causes. And thou 
dost cut off, as far as it is in thy power, when thou art 
dissatisfied, and in a manner triest to put anything out 
of the way." 16 

16 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: Thoughts. Translation by- 
Long, p. 141. 



CHAPTER XI 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 



§ 171. Absolute idealism is the most elabo- 
rately constructive of all the historical types of 
General philosophy. Though it may have over- 

Constructive 

character of looked elementary truths, and have 

Absolute 

idealism. sought to combine irreconcilable prin- 
ciples, it cannot be charged with lack of sophistica- 
tion or subtlety. Its great virtue is its recognition 
of problems — its exceeding circumspection; while 
its great promise is due to its comprehensiveness — 
its generous provision for all interests and points 
of view. But its very breadth and complexity ren- 
der this philosophy peculiarly liable to the equivo- 
cal use of conceptions. This may be readily 
understood from the nature of the central doctrine 
of absolute idealism. According to this doctrine 
it is proposed to define the universe as an abso- 

1 By Absolute Idealism is meant that system of philosophy 
which defines the universe as the absolute spirit, which is 
the human moral, cognitive, or appreciative consciousness 
universalized; or as the absolute, transcendental mind, whose 
state of complete knowledge is implied in all finite thinking. 
349 



350 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

lute spirit; or a being infinite, ultimate, eternal, 
and self-sufficient, like the being of Plato and 
Spinoza, but possessing at the same time the dis- 
tinguishing properties of spirit. Such conceptions 
as self-consciousness, will, knowledge, and moral 
goodness are carried over from the realm of human 
endeavor and social relations to the unitary and 
all-inclusive reality. Now it has been objected 
that this procedure is either meaningless, in that 
it so applies the term spirit as to contradict its 
meaning; or prejudicial to spiritual interests, in 
that it neutralizes the properties of spirit through 
so extending their use. Thus one may contend 
that to affirm that the universe as a whole is spirit 
is meaningless, since moral goodness requires spe- 
cial conditions and relations that cannot be at- 
tributed to the universe as a whole; or one may 
contend that such doctrine is prejudicial to moral 
interests because by attributing spiritual perfec- 
tion to the totality of being it discredits all moral 
loyalties and antagonisms. The difficulties that 
lie in the way of absolute idealism are due, then, 
to the complexity of its synthesis, to its complement- 
ary recognition of differences and resolution of 
them into unity. But this synthesis is due to the 
urgency of certain great problems which the first 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 351 

or realistic expression of the absolutist motive left 
undiscovered and unsolved. 

§ 172. It is natural to approach so deliberate 
and calculating a philosophy from the stand-point 
The Great °^ the problems which it proposes to 
Probkmt'of s °l ve - One of these is the epistemo- 
Absoiutism. logical problem of the relation between 
the state of knowledge and its object. Naturalism 
and absolute realism side with common-sense in 
its assumption that although the real object is es- 
sential to the valid state of knowledge, its being 
known is not essential to the real object. Sub- 
jectivism, on the other hand, maintains that being 
is essentially the content of a knowing state, or 
an activity of the knower himself. Absolute ideal- 
ism proposes to accept the general epistemological 
principle of subjectivism; but to satisfy the real- 
istic demand for a standard, compelling object, by 
setting up an absolute knower, with whom all valid 
knowledge must be in agreement. This episte- 
mological statement of absolute idealism is its 
most mature phase ; and the culminating phase, in 
which it shows unmistakable signs of passing over 
into another doctrine. We must look for its pris- 
tine inspiration in its solution of another funda- 
mental problem: that of the relation between the 



352 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

absolute and the empirical. Like absolute realism, 
this philosophy regards the universe as a unitary 
and internally necessary being, and undertakes to 
hold that being accountable for every item of ex- 
perience. But we have found that absolute real- 
ism is beset with the difficulty of thus accounting 
for the fragmentariness and isolation of the indi- 
vidual. The contention that the universe must 
really be a rational or perfect unity is disputed by 
the evident multiplicity, irrelevance, and imper- 
fection in the foreground of experience. The in- 
ference to perfection and the confession of im- 
perfection seem equally unavoidable. Rational 
necessities and empirical facts are out of joint. 

§ 173. Even Plato had been conscious of a cer- 
tain responsibility for matters of fact. Inasmuch 
The Greek as he attached the predicate of reality 

Philosophers 

and the Prob- to the absolute perfection, he made that 

lem of Evil. . 

The Task being the only source to which they 
Absolutism, could be referred. Perhaps, then, he 
suggests, they are due to the very bounteousness 
of God. 

" He was good, and no goodness can ever have any 
jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, 
he desired that all things should be as like himself as 
possible." 2 

2 Plato: Timceus. 29. Translation by Jowett. 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 353 

Plotinus, in whom Platonism is leavened by the 
spirit of an age which is convinced of sin, and 
which is therefore more keenly aware of the posi- 
tive existence of the imperfect, follows out this 
suggestion. Creation is " emanation " — the over- 
flow of God's excess of goodness. But one does 
not readily understand how goodness, desiring all 
things to be like itself, should thereupon create 
evil — even to make it good. The Aristotelian 
philosophy, with its conception of the gradation of 
substances, would seem to be better equipped 
to meet the difficulty. A development requires 
stages ; and every finite thing may thus be perfect 
in its way and perfect in its place, while in the 
absolute truth or God there is realized the meaning 
of the whole order. But if so, there is evidently 
something that escapes God, to wit, the meaning- 
less and unfitness, the error and evil, of the stages 
in their successive isolation. Nor is it of any 
avail to insist (as did Plato, Aristotle, and Spinoza 
alike) that these are only privation, and therefore 
not to be counted in the sum of reality. For pri- 
vation is itself an experience, with a great variety 
of implications, moral and psychological ; and these 
cannot be attributed to God or deduced from him, 
in consideration of his absolute perfection. 



354 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

The task of the new absolutism is now in clear 
view. The perfect must be amended to admit 
the imperfect. The absolute significance must be 
so construed as to provide for the evident facts; 
for the unmeaning things and changes of the nat- 
ural order; for ignorance, sin, despair, and every 
human deficiency. The new philosophy is to solve 
this problem by defining a spiritual absolute, and 
by so construing the life or dynamics of spirit, as to 
demonstrate the necessity of the very imperfection 
and opposition which is so baffling to the realist. 

§ 174. Absolute idealism, which is essentially 
a modern doctrine, does not begin with rhapsodies, 
The Beginning Du * w ^ n a ver y sober analysis of f amil- 
ideausm Ute * ar truths, conducted by the most sober 
in Kant's Q f ^l philosophers, Immanuel Kant. 

Analysis of - 1 *■ ' 

Experience. This philosopher lived in Konigsberg, 
Germany, at the close of the eighteenth century. 
He is related to absolute idealism much as Soc- 
rates is related to Platonism: he was not himself 
speculative, but employed a critical method which 
was transformed by his followers into a metaphysi- 
cal construction. It is essential to the understand- 
ing both of Kant and of his more speculative 
successors, to observe that he begins with the 
recognition of certain non-philosophical truths — 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 355 

those of natural science and the moral conscious- 
ness. He accepts the order of nature formulated 
in the Newtonian dynamics, and the moral order 
acknowledged in the common human conviction of 
duty. And he is interested in discovering the 
ground upon which these common affirmations 
rest, the structure which virtually supports them 
as types of knowledge. But a general importance 
attaches to the analysis because these two types 
of knowledge (together with the aesthetic judg- 
ment, which is similarly analyzed) are regarded 
by Kant as coextensive with experience itself. 
The very least experience that can be reported 
upon at all is an experience of nature or duty, 
and as such will be informed with their char- 
acteristic principles. Let us consider the former 
type. The simplest instance of nature is the ex- 
perience of the single perceived object. In the 
first place, such an object will be perceived as in 
space and time. These Kant calls the forms of 
intuition. An object cannot even be presented or 
given without them. But, furthermore, it will be 
regarded as substance, that is, as having a sub- 
stratum that persists through changes of position 
or quality. It will also be regarded as causally 
dependent upon other objects like itself. Causal- 



356 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ity, substance, and like principles to the number 
of twelve, Kant calls the categories of the under- 
standing. Both intuition and understanding are 
indispensable to the experience of any object what- 
soever. They may be said to condition the object 
in general. Their principles condition the process 
of making something out of the manifold of sen- 
sation. But similarly, every moral experience 
recognizes what Kant calls the categorical impera- 
tive. The categorical imperative is the law of 
reasonableness or impartiality in conduct, requir- 
ing the individual to act on a maxim which he 
can " will to be law universal." ~No state of de- 
sire or situation calling for action means anything 
morally except in the light of this obligation. 
Thus certain principles of thought and action are 
said to be implicit in all experience. They are 
universal and necessary in the sense that they 
are discovered as the conditions not of any particu- 
lar experience, but of experience in general. This 
implicit or virtual presence in experience in gen- 
eral, Kant calls their transcendental character, and 
the process of explicating them is his famous 
Transcendental Deduction. 

§ 175. The restriction which Kant puts upon 
his method is quite essential to its meaning. I 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 357 

deduce the categories, for example, just in so far 
as I find them to be necessary to perception. 
Kant's Princi- Without them my perception is blind, 
t P o e th?Exp C eri- 1 make nothing of it; with them my ex- 
^ ces wh ^ ch perience becomes systematic and ration- 
Order. a L j-> U £ categories which I so deduce 
must be forever limited to the role for which they 
are defined. Categories without perceptions are 
" empty " ; they have validity solely with reference 
to the experience which they set in order. Indeed, 
I cannot even complete that order. The orderly 
arrangement of parts of experience suggests, and 
suggests irresistibly, a perfect system. I can even 
define the ideas and ideals through which such a 
perfect system might be realized. But I cannot 
in the Kantian sense attach reality to it because it 
is not indispensable to experience. It must re- 
main an ideal which regulates my thinking of 
such parts of it as fall within the range of my 
perception; or it may through my moral nature 
become the realm of my living and an object of 
faith. In short, Kant's is essentially a " critical 
philosophy," a logical and analytical study of the 
special terms and relations of human knowledge. 
He denies the validity of these terms and relations 
beyond this realm. His critiques are an inven- 



358 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tory of the conditions, principles, and prospects of 
that cognition which, although not alone ideally 
conceivable, is alone possible. 

§ 176. With the successors of Kant, as with 
the successors of Socrates, a criticism becomes a 
The Post- system of metaphysics. This transfor- 
physicsfe a 6 " mation is effected in the post-Kantians 
o?tta aTS-" kj a generalization of the human 
tive and Moral CO q n m ve consciousness. According to 

Consciousness u 

as Analyzed Kant's analysis it contains a manifold 

by Kant. The J 

Absolute Spirit, of sense which must be organized by 
categories in obedience to the ideal of a ra- 
tional universe. The whole enterprise, with its 
problems given in perception, its instruments 
available in the activities of the understand- 
ing, and its ideals revealed in the reason, is an 
organic spiritual unity, manifesting itself in the 
self-consciousness of the thinker. Now in ab- 
solute idealism this very enterprise of knowl- 
edge, made universal and called the absolute spirit 
or mind, is taken to be the ultimate reality. 
And here at length would seem to be afforded the 
conception of a being to which the problematic 
and the rational, the data and the principles, the 
natural and the ideal, are alike indispensable. 
We are now to seek the real not in the ideal itself, 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 359 

but in that spiritual unity in which appearance 
is the incentive to truth, and natural imperfection 
the spring to goodness. This may he translated 
into the language which Plato uses in the " Sym- 
posium," when Diotima is revealing to Socrates 
the meaning of love. The new reality will be not 
the loved one, but love itself. 

" What then is Love? Is he mortal? " 

"No." 

"What then?" 

"As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor 
immortal, but is a mean between them." 

" What is he then, Diotima? " 

" He is a great spirit, and like all that is spiritual he 
is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." 3 

Reality is no longer the God who mingles not with 
men, but that power which, as Diotima further 
says, " interprets and conveys to the gods the 
prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the com- 
mands and rewards of the gods." 

In speaking for such an idealism, Emerson says : 

"Everything good is on the highway. The middle 
region of our being is the temperate zone. We may 
climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry 
and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Be- 
tween these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, 
of spirit, of poetry. . . . The mid- world is best." 4 

3 Plato: Symposium, 202. Translation by Jowett. 

4 Emerson: Essays, Second Series, pp. 65-66. 



360 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

The new reality is this highway of the spirit, the 
very course and raceway of self -consciousness. It 
is traversed in the movement and self -correction 
of thought, in the interest in ideals, or in the sub- 
mission of the will to the control of the moral law. 
§ 177. It is the last of these phases of self-con- 
sciousness that Fichte, who was Kant's immediate 
Fichteanism, successor, regards as of paramount im- 

or the Abso- 
lute Spirit as portance. As Platonism began with the 

Moral 

Activity. ideal of the good or the object of life, 

so the new idealism begins with the conviction 
of duty, or the story of life. Being is the living 
moral nature compelled to build itself a natural 
order wherein it may obey the moral law, and to 
divide itself into a community of moral selves 
through which the moral virtues may be realized. 
ISTature and society flow from the conception of an 
absolute moral activity, or ego. Such an ego 
could not be pure and isolated and yet be moral. 
The evidence of this is the common moral con- 
sciousness. My duty compels me to act upon the 
not-self or environment, and to respect and cooper- 
ate with other selves. Fichte's absolute is this 
moral consciousness universalized and made eter- 
nal. Moral value being its fundamental prin- 
ciple the universe must on that very account em- 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 361 

brace both nature, or moral indifference, and hu- 
manity, or moral limitation. 

§ 178. But the Romanticists, who followed close 
upon Fichte, were dissatisfied with so hard and ex- 
Romanticism, elusive a conception of spiritual being, 
spirit' a A s bs ° lute Life, they said, is not all duty. In- 
Sentiment. deed, the true spiritual life is quite 
other, not harsh and constrained, but free and spon- 
taneous — a wealth of feeling playing about a con- 
stantly shifting centre. Spirit is not consecutive 
and law-abiding, but capricious and wanton, seek- 
ing the beautiful in no orderly progression, but in 
a refined and versatile sensibility. If this be the 
nature of spirit, and if spirit be the nature of real- 
ity, then he is most wise who is most rich in sen- 
timent. The Romanticists were the exponents 
of an absolute sentimentalism. And they did 
not prove it, but like good sentimentalists they 
felt it. 

§ 179. Hegel, the master of the new idealism, 
set himself the task of construing spirit in terms 
Hegeiianism, as consecutive as those of Fichte, and 
spirit 6 f s bsolute as comprehensive as those of the Ro- 
Diaiectic. manticists. Like Plato, he found in 
dialectic the supreme manifestation of the spirit- 
ual life. There is a certain flow of ideas which 



362 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

determines the meaning of experience, and is the 
truth of truths. But the mark of the new prophet 
is this : the flow of ideas itself is a process of self- 
correction due to a sense of error. Thus bare 
sensation is abstract and bare thought is abstract. 
The real, however, is not merely the concrete in 
which they are united, but the very process in the 
course of which through knowledge of abstraction 
thought arrives at the concrete. The principle of 
negation is the very life of thought, and it is the 
life of thought, rather than the outcome of thought, 
which is reality. The most general form of the 
dialectical process contains three moments: the 
moment of thesis, in which affirmation is made ; 
the moment of antithesis, in which the opposite as- 
serts itself ; and the moment of synthesis, in which 
a reconciliation is effected in a new thesis. Thus 
thought is the progressive overcoming of contra- 
diction; not the state of freedom from contradic- 
tion, but the act of escaping it. Such processes 
are more familiar in the moral life. Morality 
consists, so even common-sense asserts, in the over- 
coming of evil. Character is the resistance of 
temptation; goodness, a growth in grace through 
discipline. Of such, for Hegel, is the very king- 
dom of heaven. It is the task of the philosopher, 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 363 

a task to which Hegel applies himself most as- 
siduously, to analyze the battle and the victory 
upon which spiritual being nourishes itself. And 
since the deeper processes are those of thought, 
the Hegelian philosophy centres in an ordering of 
notions, a demonstration of that necessary pro- 
gression of thought which, in its whole dynamical 
logical history, constitutes the absolute idea. 

§ 180. The Hegelian philosophy, with its em- 
phasis upon difference, antagonism, and develop- 
The Hegelian men t, is peculiarly qualified to be a phi- 
of W Nat ure y losophy of nature and history. Those 
and History, principles of spiritual development 
which logic defines are conceived as incarnate in 
the evolution of the world. Nature, as the very 
antithesis to spirit, is now understood to be the 
foil of spirit. In nature spirit alienates itself in 
order to return enriched. The stages of nature 
are the preparation for the reviving of a spiritu- 
ality that has been deliberately forfeited. The 
Romanticists, whether philosophers like Schelling 
or poets like Goethe and Wordsworth, were led by 
their feeling for the beauty of nature to attribute 
to it a much deeper and more direct spiritual sig- 
nificance. But Hegel and the Romanticists alike 
are truly expressed in Emerson's belief that the 



364 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

spiritual interpretation of nature is the " true 
science." 

" The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegeta- 
tion, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, 
but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain or 
meadow of space was strown with these flowers we call 
suns and moons and stars ; why the great deep is adorned 
with animals, with men, and gods ; for in every word he 
speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought." 5 

The new awakening of spirit which is for Hegel 
the consummation of the natural evolution, begins 
with the individual or subjective spirit, and de- 
velops into the social or objective spirit, which is 
morality and history. History is a veritable dia- 
lectic of nations, in the course of which the con- 
sciousness of individual liberty is developed, and 
coordinated with the unity of the state. The high- 
est stage of spirit incarnate is that of absolute 
spirit, embracing art, religion, and philosophy. 
In art the absolute idea obtains expression in sen- 
suous existence, more perfectly in classical than in 

6 Emerson: Op. cit., p. 25. 

The possibility of conflict between this method of nature 
study and the empirical method of science is significantly 
attested by the circumstance that in the year 1801 Hegel 
published a paper in which he maintained, on the ground 
of certain numerical harmonies, that there could be no 
planet between Mars and Jupiter, while at almost exactly 
the same time Piazzi discovered Ceres, the first of the as- 
teroids. 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 365 

the symbolic art of the Orient, but most perfectly 
in the romantic art of the modern period. In re- 
ligion the absolute idea is expressed in the imagi- 
nation through worship. In Oriental pantheism, 
the individual is overwhelmed by his sense of the 
universal ; in Greek religion, God is but a higher 
man ; while in Christianity God and man are per- 
fectly united in Christ. Finally, in philosophy 
the absolute idea reaches its highest possible ex- 
pression in articulate thought. 

§ 181. Such is absolute idealism approached 
from the stand-point of antecedent metaphysics. 
Resume. I* is the most elaborate and subtle 

foTute^idfauL P rovision for antagonistic differences 
to solve the w ithin unity that the speculative mind 
EviL of man has as yet been able to make. 

It is the last and most thorough attempt to resolve 
individual and universal, temporal and eternal, 
natural and ideal, good and evil, into an absolute 
unity in which the universal, eternal, ideal, and 
good shall dominate, and in which all terms shall 
be related with such necessity as obtains in the defi- 
nitions and theorems of geometry. There is to be 
some absolute meaning which is rational to the 
uttermost and the necessary ground of all the in- 
cidents of existence. Thought could undertake no 



366 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

more ambitious and exacting task. Nor is it evi- 
dent after all that absolute idealism enjoys any 
better success in this task than absolute realism. 
The difference between them becomes much less 
marked when we reflect that the former, like the 
latter, must reserve the predicate of being for the 
unity of the whole. Even though evil and con- 
tradiction belong to the essence of things, move in 
the secret heart of a spiritual universe, the reality 
is not these in their severalty, but that life within 
which they fall, the story within which they 
" earn a place." And if absolute idealism has 
defined a new perfection, it has at the same time 
defined a new imperfection. The perfection is 
rich in contrast, and thus inclusive of both the 
lights and shades of experience ; but the perfection 
belongs only to the composition of these elements 
within a single view. It is not necessary to such 
perfection that the evil should ever be viewed in 
isolation. The idealist employs the analogy of the 
drama or the picture whose very significance re- 
quires the balance of opposing forces ; or the anal- 
ogy of the symphony in which a higher musical 
quality is realized through the resolution of discord 
into harmony. But none of these unities requires 
any element whatsoever that does not partake of its 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 367 

beauty. It is quite irrelevant to the drama that 
the hero should himself have his own view of 
events with no understanding of their dramatic 
value, as it is irrelevant to the picture that an un- 
balanced fragment of it should dwell apart, or 
to the symphony that the discord should be heard 
without the harmony. One may multiply without 
end the internal differences and antagonisms that 
contribute to the internal meaning, and be as far 
as ever from understanding the external detach- 
ment of experiences that are not rational or good 
in themselves. And it is precisely this kind of 
fact that precipitates the whole problem. We do 
not judge of sin and error from experiences in 
which they conduct to goodness and truth, but 
from experiences in which they are stark and 
unresolved. 

In view of such considerations many idealists 
have been willing to confess their inability to solve 
this problem. To quote a recent expositor of 
Hegel, 

" We need not, after all, be surprised at the apparently 
insoluble problem which confronts us. For the question 
has developed into the old difficulty of the origin of evil, 
which has always baffled both theologians and philoso- 
phers. An idealism which declares that the universe is 
in reality perfect, can find, as most forms of popular 



368 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

idealism do, an escape from the difficulties of the ex- 
istence of evil, by declaring that the universe is as yet 
only growing towards its ideal perfection. But this 
refuge disappears with the reality of time, and we are 
left with an awkward difference between what philosophy 
tells us must be, and what our life tells us actually is." 8 

If the philosophy of eternal perfection persists in 
its fundamental doctrine in spite of this irreconcil- 
able conflict with life, it is because it is believed 
that that doctrine must be true. Let us turn, then, 
to its more constructive and compelling argument. 

§ 182. The proof of absolute idealism is sup- 
posed by the majority of its exponents to follow 
The Construe- from the problem of epistemology, and 

tive Argument .• i i j* .i •£ j. 

for Absolute more particularly from the manliest 
B^dTpon the dependence of truth u P on the lowing 
subjectivistic m j n( j. I n its initial phase absolute 

Theory of r 

Knowledge, idealism is indistinguishable from sub- 
jectivism. Like that philosophy it finds that the 
object of knowledge is inseparable from the state 
of knowledge throughout the whole range of ex- 
perience. Since the knower can never escape him- 
self, it may be set down as an elementary fact that 
reality (at any rate whatever reality can be known 
or even talked about) owes its being to mind. 

6 McTaggart: Studies in Hegelian Dialectic, p. 181. 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 369 

Thus Green, the English neo-Hegelian, maintains 
that " an object which no consciousness presented 
to itself would not be an object at all," and won- 
ders that this principle is not generally taken for 
granted and made the starting-point for philoso- 
phy. 7 However, unless the very term " object " is 
intended to imply presence to a subject, this prin- 
ciple is by no means self-evident, and must be 
traced to its sources. 

We have already followed the fortunes of that 
empirical subjectivism which issues from the rel- 
ativity of perception. At the very dawn of phi- 
losophy it was observed that what is seen, heard, 
or otherwise experienced through the senses, de- 
pends not only upon the use of sense-organs, but 
upon the special point of view occupied by each 
individual sentient being. It was therefore con- 
cluded that the perceptual world belonged to the 
human knower with his limitations and perspec- 
tive, rather than to being itself. It was this epi- 
stemological principle upon which Berkeley found- 
ed his empirical idealism. Believing knowledge 
to consist essentially in perception, and believing 
perception to be subjective, he had to choose 
between the relegation of being to a region inac- 
7 Green: Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 15. 



370 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

cessible to knowledge, and the definition of being 
in terms of subjectivity. To avoid scepticism he 
accepted the latter alternative. But among the 
Greeks with whom this theory of perception origi- 
nated, it drew its meaning in large part from the 
distinction between perception and reason. Thus 
we read in Plato's " Sophist " : 

"And you would allow that we participate in genera- 
tion with the body, and by perception ; but we participate 
with the soul by thought in true essence, and essence 
you would affirm to be always the same and immutable, 
whereas generation varies." 8 

It is conceived that although in perception man 
is condemned to a knowledge conditioned by the 
affections and station of his body, he may nev- 
ertheless escape himself and lay hold on the 
" true essence " of things, by virtue of thought. 
In other words, knowledge, in contradistinction 
to " opinion," is not made by the subject, but is 
the soul's participation in the eternal natures 
of things. In the moment of insight the varying 
course of the individual thinker coincides with the 
unvarying truth ; but in that moment the individ- 
ual thinker is ennobled through being assimilated 
to the truth, while the truth is no more, no less, 
the truth than before. 

8 Plato: The Sophist, 248. Translation by Jowett. 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 371 

§ 183. In absolute idealism, the principle of 
subjectivism is extended to reason itself. This 
The Principle extension seems to have been originally 
of "bjecti- ( j ue £ mora i an( j religious interests. 

vism Extend- © 

ed to Reason. ;p rom ^he m0 ral stand-point the contem- 
plation of the truth is a state, and the highest state 
of the individual life. The religious interest uni- 
fies the individual life and directs attention to its 
spiritual development. Among the Greeks of the 
middle period life was as yet viewed objectively 
as the fulfilment of capacities, and knowledge was 
regarded as perfection of function, the exercise of 
the highest of human prerogatives. But as moral 
and religious interests became more absorbing, the 
individual lived more and more in his own self- 
consciousness. Even before the Christian era the 
Greek philosophers themselves were preoccupied 
with the task of winning a state of inner serenity. 
Thus the Stoics and Epicureans came to look upon 
knowledge as a means to the attainment of an inner 
freedom from distress and bondage to the world. 
In other words, the very reason was regarded as an 
activity of the self, and its fruits were valued for 
their enhancement of the welfare of the self. And 
if this be true of the Stoics and the Epicureans, it 
is still more clearly true of the neo-Platonists of 



372 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the Christian era, who mediate between the an- 
cient and mediaeval worlds. 

§ 184. It is well known that the early period 
of Christianity was a period of the most vivid 
Emphasis on self-consciousness. The individual be- 

Self-con- 

sciousness in lieved that his natural and social 

Early Christian . . 

Philosophy, environment was alien to his deeper 
spiritual interests. He therefore withdrew into 
himself. He believed himself to have but one 
duty, the salvation of his soul; and that duty re- 
quired him to search his innermost springs of 
action in order to uproot any that might compro- 
mise him with the world and turn him from God. 
The drama of life was enacted within the circle 
of his own self -consciousness. Citizenship, bodily 
health, all forms of appreciation and knowledge, 
were identified in the parts they played here. In 
short the Christian consciousness, although renun- 
ciation was its deepest motive, was reflexive and 
centripetal to a degree hitherto unknown among 
the European peoples. And when with St. Augus- 
tine theoretical interests once more vigorously 
asserted themselves, this new emphasis was in the 
very foreground. St. Augustine wished to begin 
his system of thought with a first indubitable cer- 
tainty, and selected neither being nor ideas, but 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 373 

self. St. Augustine's genius was primarily re- 
ligious, and the " Confessions," in which he re- 
cords the story of his hard winning of peace and 
right relations with God, is his most intimate 
book. How faithfully does he represent him- 
self, and the blend of paganism and Christianity 
which was distinctive of his age, when in his 
systematic writings he draws upon religion for 
his knowledge of truth! In all my living, he 
argues, whether I sin or turn to God, whether I 
doubt or believe, whether I know or am ignorant, 
in all / know that I am I. Each and every state 
of my consciousness is a state of my self, and as 
such, sure evidence of my self's existence. If one 
were to follow St. Augustine's reflections further, 
one would find him reasoning from his own finite 
and evil self to an infinite and perfect Self, which 
centres like his in the conviction that I am I, but 
is endowed with all power and all worth. One 
would find him reflecting upon the possible union 
with God through the exaltation of the human 
self-consciousness. But this conception of God as 
the perfect self is so much a prophecy of things 
to come, that more than a dozen centuries elapsed 
before it was explicitly formulated by the post- 
Kantians. We must follow its more gradual de- 



374 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

velopment in the philosophies of Descartes and 
Kant. 

§ 185. When at the close of the sixteenth cen- 
tury the Frenchman, Rene Descartes, sought to 
Descartes's construct philosophy anew and upon se- 

Argument for 

the indepen- cure foundations, he too selected as the 

dence of the 

Thinking Self . initial certainty of thought the think- 
er's knowledge of himself. This principle now 
received its classic formulation in the proposition, 
Cogito ergo sum — " I think, hence I am." The 
argument does not differ essentially from that of 
St. Augustine, but it now finds a place in a system- 
atic and critical metaphysics. In that my think- 
ing is certain of itself, says Descartes, in that I 
know myself before I know aught else, my self can 
never be dependent for its being upon anything 
else that I may come to know. A thinking self, 
with its knowledge and its volition, is quite ca- 
pable of subsisting of itself. Such is, indeed, not 
the case with a finite self, for all finitude is sig- 
nificant of limitation, and in recognizing my limi- 
tations I postulate the infinite being or God. But 
the relation of my self to a physical world is quite 
without necessity. Human nature, with soul and 
body conjoined, is a combination of two substances, 
neither of which is a necessary consequence of the 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 375 

other. As a result of this combination the soul is 
to some extent affected by the body, and the body 
is to some extent directed by the soul; but the 
body could conceivably be an automaton, as the 
soul could conceivably be, and will in another life 
become, a free spirit. The consequences of this 
dualism for epistemology are very grave. If 
knowledge be the activity of a self-subsistent think- 
ing spirit, how can it reveal the nature of an ex- 
ternal world ? The natural order is now literally 
" external." It is true that the whole body of 
exact science, that mechanical system to which 
Descartes attached so much importance, falls 
within the range of the soul's own thinking. But 
what assurance is there that it refers to a province 
of its own — a physical world in space ? Descartes 
can only suppose that " clear and distinct " ideas 
must be trusted as faithful representations. It 
is true the external world makes its presence known 
directly, when it breaks in upon the soul in sense- 
perception. But Descartes's rationalism and love 
of mathematics forbade his attaching importance 
to this criterion. Real nature, that exactly de- 
finable and predictable order of moving bodies 
defined in physics, is not known through sense- 
perception, but through thought. Its necessities 



376 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

are the necessities of reason. Descartes finds 
himself, then, in the perplexing position of seek- 
ing an internal criterion for an external world. 
The problem of knowledge so stated sets going the 
whole epistemological movement of the eighteenth 
century, from Locke through Berkeley and Hume 
to Kant. And the issue of this development is the 
absolute idealism of Kant's successors. 

§ 186. Of the English philosophers who pre- 
pare the way for the epistemology of Kant, Hume 
Empirical * s ^ ne mos t radical and momentous. It 
tt^EnSsii was he who roused Kant from his 
Philosophers, « dogmatic slumbers " to the task of the 
" Critical Philosophy." Hume is one of the two 
possible consequences of Descartes. One who at- 
taches greater importance to the rational necessi- 
ties of science than to its external reference, is 
not unwilling that nature should be swallowed up 
in mind. With Malebranche, Descartes's imme- 
diate successor in France, nature is thus provided 
for within the archetypal mind of God. With the 
English philosophers, on the other hand, exter- 
nality is made the very mark of nature, and as 
a consequence sense-perception becomes the crite- 
rion of scientific truth. This empirical theory of 
knowledge, inaugurated and developed by Locke 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 377 

and Berkeley, culminates in Hume's designation 
of the impression as the distinguishing element of 
nature, at once making up its content and certify- 
ing to its externality. The processes of nature are 
successions of impressions ; and the laws of nature 
are their uniformities, or the expectations of uni- 
formity which their repetitions engender. Hume 
does not hesitate to draw the logical conclusion. 
If the final mark of truth is the presence to sense 
of the individual element, then science can consist 
only of items of information and probable general- 
izations concerning their sequences. The effect is 
observed to follow upon the cause in fact, but there 
is no understanding of its necessity ; therefore no 
absolute certainty attaches to the future effects of 
any cause. 

§ 187. But what has become of the dream of 
the mathematical physicist ? Is the whole system 
To save Exact of Newton, that brilliant triumph of the 

Science Kant 

Makes it mechanic al method, unfounded and dog- 
Dependent ,• - . . . -I.-I. j> 
on Mind. matic ? It is the logical instability of 

this body of knowledge, made manifest in the well- 
founded scepticism of Hume, that rouses Kant to 
a reexamination of the whole foundation of natural 
science. The general outline of his analysis has 
been developed above. It is of importance here 



378 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

to understand its relations to the problem of Des- 
cartes. Contrary to the view of the English phi- 
losophers, natural science is, says Kant, the work 
of the mind. The certainty of the causal rela- 
tion is due to the human inability to think other- 
wise. Hume is mistaken in supposing that mere 
sensation gives us any knowledge of nature. The 
very least experience of objects involves the em- 
ployment of principles which are furnished by 
the mind. Without the employment of such prin- 
ciples, or in bare sensation, there is no intelligible 
meaning whatsoever. But once admit the employ- 
ment of such principles and formulate them sys- 
tematically, and the whole Newtonian order of 
nature is seen to follow from them. Furthermore, 
since these principles or categories are the condi- 
tions of human experience, are the very instru- 
ments of knowledge, they are valid wherever there 
is any experience or knowledge. There is but one 
way to make anything at all out of nature, and that 
is to conceive it as an order of necessary events in 
space and time. Newtonian science is part of 
such a general conception, and is therefore neces- 
sary if knowledge is to be possible at all, even the 
least. Thus Kant turns upon Hume, and shuts 
him up to the choice between the utter abnegation 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 379 

of all knowledge, including the knowledge of his 
own scepticism, and the acceptance of the whole 
body of exact science. 

But with nature thus conditioned by the neces- 
sities of thought, what has become of its external- 
ity? That, Kant admits, has indeed vanished. 
Kant does not attempt, as did Descartes, to hold 
that the nature which mind constructs and con- 
trols, exists also outside of mind. The nature 
that is known is on that very account phenomenal, 
anthropocentric — created by its cognitive condi- 
tions. Descartes was right in maintaining that 
sense-perception certifies to the existence of a world 
outside the mind, but mistaken in calling it nature 
and identifying it with the realm of science. In 
short, Kant acknowledges the external world, and 
names it the thing -in-itself ; but insists that be- 
cause it is outside of mind it is outside of knowl- 
edge. Thus is the certainty of science saved 
at the cost of its metaphysical validity. It is 
necessarily true, but only of a conditioned or de- 
pendent world. And in saving science Kant has 
at the same time prejudiced metaphysics in gen- 
eral. For the human or naturalistic way of 
knowing is left in sole possession of the field, with 
the higher interest of reasons in the ultimate 



380 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

nature of being, degraded to the rank of practical 
faith. 

§ 188. The transformation of this critical and 
agnostic doctrine into absolute idealism is inevi- 
The Post- table. The metaphysical interest was 

Kantians 

Transform bound to avail itself of the speculative 

Kant's Mind- 
in-general into suggestiveness with which the Kantian 

Mind. philosophy abounds. The transforma- 

tion turns upon Kant's assumption that whatever 
is constructed by the mind is on that account phe- 
nomenon or appearance. Kant has carried along 
the presumption that whatever is act or content of 
mind is on that account not real object or thing-in- 
itself. We have seen that this is generally ac- 
cepted as true of the relativities of sense-percep- 
tion. But is it true of thought ? The post-Kan- 
tian idealist maintains that that depends upon the 
thought. The content of private individual think- 
ing is in so far not real object ; but it does not fol- 
low that this is true of such thinking as is univer- 
sally valid. ~No\v Kant has deduced his categories 
for thought in general. There are no empirical 
cases of thinking except the human thinkers; 
but the categories are not the property of any 
one human individual or any group of such 
individuals. They are the conditions of experi- 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 381 

ence in general, and of every possibility of ex- 
perience. The transition to absolute idealism 
is now readily made. Thought in general becomes 
the absolute mind, and experience in general its 
content. The thing-in-itself drops out as having 
no meaning. The objectivity to which it testified 
is provided for in the completeness and self- 
sufficiency which is attributed to the absolute ex- 
perience. Indeed, an altogether new definition of 
subjective and objective replaces the old. The sub- 
jective is that which is only insufficiently thought, 
as in the case of relativity and error; the objective 
is that which is completely thought. Thus the 
natural order is indeed phenomenal; but only 
because the principles of science are not the high- 
est principles of thought, and not because nature 
is the fruit of thought. Thus Hegel expresses 
his relation to Kant as follows : 

" According to Kant, the things that we know about 
are to us appearances only, and we can never know their 
essential nature, which belongs to another world, which 
we cannot approach. . . . The true statement of 
the case is as follows. The things of which we have 
direct consciousness are mere phenomena, not for us 
only, but in their own nature; and the true and proper 
case of these things, finite as they are, is to have their 
existence founded not in themselves, but in the universal 
divine idea. This view of things, it is true, is as idealist 



382 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

as Kant's, but in contradistinction to the subjective 
idealism of the Critical Philosophy should be termed 
Absolute Idealism." 9 

§ 189. Absolute idealism is thus reached after 
a long and devious course of development. But 
The Direct the argument may be stated much more 
The^toence briefly. Plato, it will be remembered, 
Stt e thi nitefound that ex P erienc e tends ever to 
infinite Mind, transcend itself. The thinker finds 
himself compelled to pursue the ideal of immu- 
table and universal truth, and must identify the 
ultimate being with that ideal. Similarly Hegel 
says: 

"That upward spring of the mind signifies that the 
being which the world has is only a semblance, no real 
being, no absolute truth; it signifies that beyond and 
above that appearance, truth abides in God, so that 
true being is another name for God." 10 

The further argument of absolute idealism dif- 
fers from that of Plato in that the dependence of 
truth upon the mind is accepted as a first principle. 
The ideal with which experience is informed is 
now the state of perfect hnoivledge, rather than the 

9 Hegel: Encyclopadie, §45, lecture note. Quoted by 
McTaggart: Op. cit., p. 69. 

10 Hegel: Encyclopadie, § 50. Quoted by McTaggart: Op. 
cit., p. 70. 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 383 

system of absolute truth. The content of the state 
of perfect knowledge will indeed be the system of 
absolute truth, but none the less content, precisely 
as finite knowledge is the content of a finite mind. 
In pursuing the truth, I who pursue, aim to realize 
in myself a certain highest state of knowledge. 
Were I to know all truth I should indeed have 
ceased to be the finite individual who began the 
quest, but the evolution would be continuous and 
the character of self-consciousness would never have 
been lost. I may say, in short, that God or being, 
is my perfect cognitive self. 

The argument for absolute idealism is a con- 
structive interpretation of the subjectivistic con- 
tention that knowledge can never escape the circle 
of its own activity and states. To meet the de- 
mand for a final and standard truth, a demand 
which realism meets with its doctrine of a being 
independent of any mind, this philosophy defines 
a standard mind. The impossibility of defining 
objects in terms of relativity to a finite self, con- 
ducts dialectically to the conception of the abso- 
lute self. The sequel to my error or exclusiveness, 
is truth or inclusiveness. The outcome of the dia- 
lectic is determined by the symmetry of the antith- 
esis. Thus, corrected experience implies a last 



384 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

correcting experience ; partial cognition, complete 
cognition; empirical subject, transcendental sub- 
ject; finite mind, an absolute mind. The follow- 
ing statement is taken from a contemporary ex- 
ponent of the philosophy : 

" What you and I lack, when we lament our human 
ignorance, is simply a certain desirable and logically 
possible state of mind, or type of experience; to wit, a 
state of mind in which we should wisely be able to say 
that we had fulfilled in experience what we now have 
merely in idea, namely, the knowledge, the immediate 
and felt presence, of what we now call the Absolute 
Reality. . . . There is an Absolute Experience for 
which the conception of an absolute reality, i. e., the 
conception of a system of ideal truth, is fulfilled by the 
very contents that get presented to this experience. 
This Absolute Experience is related to our experience 
as an organic whole to its own fragments. It is an ex- 
perience which finds fulfilled all that the completest 
thought can conceive as genuinely possible. Herein 
lies its definition as an Absolute. For the Absolute 
Experience, as for ours, there are data, contents, facts. 
But these data, these contents, express, for the Absolute 
Experience, its own meaning, its thought, its ideas. 
Contents beyond these that it possesses, the Absolute 
Experience knows to be, in genuine truth, impossible. 
Hence its contents are indeed particular, — a selection 
from the world of bare or merely conceptual possi- 
bilities, — but they form a self-determined whole, than 
which nothing completer, more organic, more fulfilled, 
more transparent, or more complete in meaning, is 
concretely or genuinely possible. On the other hand, 
these contents are not foreign to those of our finite 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 385 

experience, but are inclusive of them in the unity of 
one life." u 

§ 190. As has been already intimated, at the 
opening of this chapter, the inclusion of the whole 
The Realistic °^ reality within a single self is clearly 
involute a questionable proceeding. The need 
idealism. £ av oiding the relativism of empirical 
idealism is evident. But if the very meaning of 
the self -consciousness be due to a certain selection 
and exclusion within the general field of experi- 
ence, it is equally evident that the relativity of 
self-consciousness can never be overcome through 
appealing to a higher self. One must appeal from 
the self to the realm of things as they are. In- 
deed, although the exponents of this philosophy 
use the language of spiritualism, and accept the 
idealistic epistemology, their absolute being tends 
ever to escape the special characters of the self. 
And inasmuch as the absolute self is commonly 
set over against the finite or empirical self, as the 
standard and test of truth, it is the less distin- 

11 Royce: Conception of God, pp. 19, 43-44. 

This argument is well summarized in Green's statement 
that " the existence of one connected world, which is the 
presupposition of knowledge, implies the action of one self- 
conditioning and self-determining mind." Prolegomena to 
Ethics, p. 181. 



386 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

guishable from the realist's order of independent 
beings. 

§ 191. But however much absolute idealism 
may tend to abandon its idealism for the sake of 
The Concep- its absolutism within the field of meta- 
consdoSLs physics, such is not the ease within the 

Swcs al of athe field of ethics and reli g ion - Tbe con- 
Absolute ception of the self here receives a new 

Idealism. A 

Kant. emphasis. The same self-consciousness 

which admits to the highest truth is the evidence 
of man's practical dignity. In virtue of his im- 
mediate apprehension of the principles of self- 
hood, and his direct participation in the life of 
spirit, man may be said to possess the innermost 
secret of the universe. In order to achieve good- 
ness he must therefore recognize and express him- 
self. The Kantian philosophy is here again the 
starting-point. It was Kant who first gave ade- 
quate expression to the Christian idea of the moral 
self-consciousness. 

"Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name that dost 
embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest 
submission, and yet seekest not to move the will by 
threatening aught that would arouse natural aversion or 
terror, but merely holdest forth a law which of itself 
finds entrance into the mind, ... a law before 
which all inclinations are dumb, even though they 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 387 

secretly counterwork it; what origin is there worthy of 
thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble 
descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the in- 
clinations . . . ? It can be nothing less than a 
power which elevates man above himself, ... a 
power which connects him with an order of things that 
only the understanding can conceive, with a world which 
at the same time commands the whole sensible world, 
and with it the empirically determinable existence of 
man in time, as well as the sum total of all ends." 12 

With Kant there can be no morality except con- 
duct be attended by the consciousness of this duty 
imposed by the higher nature upon the lower. It 
is this very recognition of a deeper self, of a per- 
sonality that belongs to the sources and not to the 
consequences of nature, that constitutes man as a 
moral being, and only such action as is inspired 
with a reverence for it can be morally good. Kant 
does little more than to establish the uncompro- 
mising dignity of the moral will. In moral 
action man submits to a law that issues from 
himself in virtue of his rational nature. Here 
he yields nothing, as he owes nothing, to that 
appetency which binds him to the natural world. 
As a rational being he himself affirms the very 
principles which determine the organization of 

12 Kant: Critical Examination of Practical Reason. Trans- 
lated by Abbott in Kant's Theory of Ethics, p. 180. 



388 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

nature. This is his freedom, at once the ground 
and the implication of his duty. Man is free from 
nature to serve the higher law of his personality. 
§ 192. There are two respects in which Kant's 
ethics has been regarded as inadequate by those 
Kantian Ethics who draw from it their fundamental 

Supplemented 

through the principles. It is said that Kant is too 

Conceptions 

of Universal rigoristic, that he makes too stern a 

and Objective . „ , . . , . 

Spirit. business oi morality, in speaking so 

much of law and so little of love and spontaneity. 
There are good reasons for this. Kant seeks to 
isolate the moral consciousness, and dwell upon it 
in its purity, in order that he may demonstrate its 
incommensurability with the values of inclination 
and sensibility. Furthermore, Kant may speak 
of the principle of the absolute, and recognize the 
deeper eternal order as a law, but he may not, if 
he is to be consistent with his own critical prin- 
ciples, affirm the metaphysical being of such an 
order. With his idealistic followers it is possible 
to define the spiritual setting of the moral life, 
but with Kant it is only possible to define the an- 
tagonism of principles. Hence the greater opti- 
mism of the post-Kantians. They know that the 
higher law is the reality, and that he who obeys 
it thus unites himself with the absolute self. That 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 389 

which for Kant is only a resolute obedience to 
more valid principles, to rationally superior rules 
for action, is for idealism man's appropriation 
of his spiritual birthright. Since the law is the 
deeper nature, man may respect and obey it 
as valid, and at the same time act upon it gladly 
in the sure knowledge that it will enhance his 
eternal welfare. Indeed, the knowledge that the 
very universe is founded upon this law will make 
him less suspicious of nature and less exclusive in 
his adherence to any single law. He will be more 
confident of the essential goodness of all manifes- 
tations of a universe which he knows to be fun- 
damentally spiritual. 

But it has been urged, secondly, that the Kan- 
tian ethics is too formal, too little pertinent to the 
issues of life. Kant's moral law imposes only obe- 
dience to the law, or conduct conceived as suitable 
to a universal moral community. But what is the 
nature of such conduct in particular ? It may be 
answered that to maintain the moral self -conscious- 
ness, to act dutifully and dutifully only, to be 
self-reliant and unswerving in the doing of what 
one ought to do, is to obtain a very specific char- 
acter. But does this not leave the individual's 
conduct to his own interpretation of his duty ? 



390 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

It was just this element of individualism which 
Hegel sought to eliminate through the applica- 
tion of his larger philosophical conception. If 
that which expresses itself within the individual 
consciousness as the moral law be indeed the law 
of that self in which the universe is grounded, it 
will appear as objective spirit in the evolution of 
society. For Hegel, then, the most valid standard 
of goodness is to be found in that customary mo- 
rality which bespeaks the moral leadings of the 
general humanity, and in those institutions, such as 
the family and the state, which are the moral acts 
of the absolute idea itself. Finally, in the realm 
of absolute spirit, in art, in revealed religion, and 
in philosophy, the individual may approach to the 
self-consciousness which is the perfect truth and 
goodness in and for itself. 

§ 193. Where the law of life is the implication 
in the finite self-consciousness of the eternal and 
The Peculiar divine self-consciousness, there can be 

Pantheism , , 

and Mysticism no division between morality and re- 

of Absolute i • • i i i 

idealism. ligion, as there can be none between 
thought and will. Whatever man seeks is in the 
end God. As the perfect fulfilment of the think- 
ing self, God is the truth ; as the perfect fulfilment 
of the willing self, God is the good. The finite 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 391 

self-consciousness finds facts that are not under- 
stood, and so seeks to resolve itself into the perfect 
self wherein all that is given has meaning. On 
the other hand, the finite self-consciousness finds 
ideals that are not realized, and so seeks to resolve 
itself into that perfect self wherein all that is sig- 
nificant is given. All interests thus converge 
toward 

"some state of conscious spirit in which the opposition 
of cognition and volition is overcome — in which we 
neither judge our ideas by the world, nor the world by 
our ideas, but are aware that inner and outer are in such 
close and necessary harmony that even the thought of 
possible discord has become impossible. In its unity 
not only cognition and volition, but feeling also, must 
be blended and united. In some way or another it must 
have overcome the rift in discursive knowledge, and the 
immediate must for it be no longer the alien. It must 
be as direct as art, as certain and universal as philoso- 
phy." 13 

The religious consciousness proper to absolute 
idealism is both pantheistic and mystical, but with 
distinction. Platonism is pantheistic in that nat- 
ure is resolved into God. All that is not perfect 
is esteemed only for its promise of perfection. 
And Platonism is mystical in that the purification 
and universalization of the affections brings one 

13 Quoted from McTaggart: Op. cit., pp. 231-232. 



392 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

in the end to a perfection that exceeds all mode3 

of thought and speech. With Spinoza, on the 

other hand, God may be said to be resolved into 

nature. Nature is made divine, but is none the 

less nature, for its divinity consists in its absolute 

necessity. Spinoza's pantheism passes over into 

mysticism because the absolute necessity exceeds 

in both unity and richness the laws known to 

the human understanding. In absolute idealism, 

finally, both God and nature are resolved into the 

self. For that which is divine in experience is 

self -consciousness, and this is at the same time the 

ground of nature. Thus in the highest knowledge 

the self is expanded and enriched without being 

left behind. The mystical experience proper to 

this philosophy is the consciousness of identity, 

together with the sense of universal immanence. 

The individual self may be directly sensible of the 

absolute self, for these are one spiritual life. 

Thus Emerson says: 

" It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly 
learns, that beyond the energy of his possessed and con- 
scious intellect he is capable of a new energy (as of an 
intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the 
nature of things; that beside his privacy of power as an 
individual man, there is a great public power upon which 
he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, 
and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate 



ABSOLUTE IDEALISM 393 

through him; then he is caught up into the life of the 
Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and 
his words are universally intelligible as the plants and 
animals. The poet knows that he speaks adequately 
then only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or 'with 
the flower of the mind ' ; not with the intellect used as an 
organ, but with the intellect released from all service 
and suffered to take its direction from its celestial life." 14 

§ 194. But the distinguishing flavor and qual- 
ity of this religion arises from its spiritual hos- 
The Religion pitality. It is not, like Platonism, a 

of Exuberant . ■ 

Spirituality, contemplation of the best ; nor, like plu- 
ralistic idealisms, a moral knight-errantry. It is 
neither a religion of exclusion, nor a religion of 
reconstruction, but a profound willingness that 
things should be as they really are. For this rea- 
son its devotees have recognized in Spinoza their 
true forerunner. But idealism is not Spinozism, 
though it may contain this as one of its strains. 
For it is not the worship of necessity, Emerson's 
" beautiful necessity, which makes man brave in 
believing that he cannot shun a danger that is ap- 
pointed, nor incur one that is not " ; but the wor- 
ship of that which is necessary. 

Not only must one understand that every effort, 
however despairing, is an element of sense in the 
universal significance ; 

14 Emerson: Op. cit., pp. 30-31. 



394 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

" that the whole would not be what it is were not pre- 
cisely this finite purpose left in its own uniqueness to 
speak precisely its own word — a word which no other 
purpose can speak in the language of the divine will"; 15 

but one must have a zest for such participation, 
and a heart for the divine will which it profits. 
Indeed, so much is this religion a love of life, 
that it may, as in the case of the Romanticists, be 
a love of caprice. Battle and death, pain and joy, 
error and truth — all that belongs to the story of 
this mortal world, are to be felt as the thrill of 
health, and relished as the essences of God. Re- 
ligion is an exuberant spirituality, a fearless sen- 
sibility, a knowledge of both good and evil, and a 
will to serve the good, while exulting that the evil 
will not yield without a battle. 

15 Royce: The World and the Individual, First Series, p. 465. 



CHAPTEE XII 

CONCLUSION 

§ 195. One who consults a book of philosophy 
in the hope of finding there a definite body of 
Liability of truth, sanctioned by the consensus of ex- 

iSSHT' 10 P erts ' cannot fail t0 be disappointed. 
Due to its ^ n( j ft S ] 10U 1J now }yQ plain that this is 

Systematic A 

character. j ue no £ ^ ^h e frailties of philosophers, 
but to the meaning of philosophy. Philosophy is 
not additive, but reconstructive. Natural science 
may advance step by step without ever losing 
ground; its empirical discoveries are in their 
severalty as true as they can ever be. Thus the 
stars and the species of animals may be recorded 
successively, and each generation of astronomers 
and zoologists may take up the work at the point 
reached by its forerunners. The formulation of 
results does, it is true, require constant correction 
and revision — but there is a central body of data 
which is little affected, and which accumulates 
from age to age. Now the finality of scientific 
truth is proportional to the modesty of its claims. 
395 



396 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

Items of truth persist, while the interpretation of 
them is subject to alteration with the general 
advance of knowledge; and, relatively speaking, 
science consists in items of truth, and philosophy 
in their interpretation. The liability to revision 
in science itself increases as that body of knowl- 
edge becomes more highly unified and systematic. 
Thus the present age, with its attempt to construct 
a single comprehensive system of mechanical sci- 
ence, is peculiarly an age when fundamental con- 
ceptions are subjected to a thorough reexamination 
— when, for example, so ancient a conception as 
that of matter is threatened with displacement by 
that of energy. But philosophy is essentially uni- 
tary and systematic — and thus superlatively liable 
to revision. 

§ 196. It is noteworthy that it is only in this 
age of a highly systematic natural science that 
The One different systems are projected, as in 
the^aif 1 " 1 the case just noted of the rivalry 
Philosophies. b e t wee n the strictly mechanical, or cor- 
puscular, theory and the newer theory of ener- 
getics. It has heretofore been taken for granted 
that although there may be many philosophies, 
there is but one body of science. And it is still 
taken for granted that the experimental detail of 



CONCLUSION 397 

the individual science is a common fund, to the 
progressive increase of which the individual scien- 
tist contributes the results of his special research ; 
there being rival schools of mechanics, physics, or 
chemistry, only in so far as fundamental concep- 
tions or principles of orderly arrangement are in 
question. But philosophy deals exclusively with 
the most fundamental conceptions and the most 
general principles of orderly arrangement. Hence 
it is significant of the very task of philosophy that 
there should be many tentative systems of philoso- 
phy, even that each philosopher should project and 
construct his own philosophy. Philosophy as the 
truth of synthesis and reconciliation, of compre- 
hensiveness and coordination, must be a living 
unity. It is a thinking of entire experience, and 
can be sufficient only through being all-sufficient. 
The heart of every philosophy is a harmonizing in- 
sight, an intellectual prospect within which all 
human interests and studies compose themselves. 
Such knowledge cannot be delegated to isolated co- 
laborers, but will be altogether missed if not loved 
and sought in its indivisible unity. There is no 
modest home-keeping philosophy ; no safe and con- 
servative philosophy, that can make sure of a part 
through renouncing the whole. There is no phi- 



398 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

losophy without intellectual temerity, as there is no 
religion without moral temerity. And the one is 
the supreme interest of thought, as the other is the 
supreme interest of life. 

§ 197. Though the many philosophies be inev- 
itable, it must not be concluded that there is 
Progress in therefore no progress in philosophy. 
Tn'eSopMstica- The solution from which every great 
ticfem'of the" phil° s °phy is precipitated is the min- 
PresentAge. ^ed w j s( j om f some latest age, with 

all of its inheritance. The " positive " knowledge 
furnished by the sciences, the refinements and dis- 
tinctions of the philosophers, the ideals of society 
— these and the whole sum of civilization are its 
ingredients. Where there is no single system of 
philosophy significant enough to express the age, 
as did the systems of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, 
Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, and the others who 
belong to the roll of the great philosophers, there 
exists a general sophistication, which is more elu- 
sive but not less significant. The present age — at 
any rate from its own stand-point — is not an age of 
great philosophical systems. Such systems may 
indeed be living in our midst unrecognized; but 
historical perspective cannot safely be anticipated. 
It is certain that no living voice is known to speak 



CONCLUSION 399 

for this generation as did Hegel, and even Spencer, 
for the last. There is, however, a significance in 
this very passing of Hegel and Spencer, — an en- 
lightenment peculiar to an age which knows them, 
but has philosophically outlived them. There is a 
moral in the history of thought which just now no 
philosophy, whether naturalism or transcendental- 
ism, realism or idealism, can fail to draw. The 
characterization of this contemporary eclecticism 
or sophistication, difficult and uncertain as it must 
needs be, affords the best summary and interpre- 
tation with which to conclude this brief survey of 
the fortunes of philosophy. 

§ 198. Since the problem of metaphysics is the 
crucial problem of philosophy, the question of its 
Metaphysics, present status is fundamental in any 

The Antagonis- 
tic Doctrines of characterization of the age. It will 

Naturalism and 

Absolutism, appear from the foregoing account of 
the course of metaphysical development that two 
fundamental tendencies have exhibited themselves 
from the beginning. The one of these is natural- 
istic and empirical, representing the claims of what 
common sense calls " matters of fact " ; the other 
is transcendental and rational, representing the 
claims of the standards and ideals which are im- 
manent in experience, and directly manifested in 



400 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the great human interests of thought and action. 
These tendencies have on the whole been antago- 
nistic ; and the clear-cut and momentous systems of 
philosophy have been fundamentally determined 
by either the one or the other. 

Thus materialism is due to the attempt to re- 
duce all of experience to the elements and prin- 
ciples of connection which are employed by the 
physical sciences to set in order the actual motions, 
or changes of place, which the parts of experience 
undergo. Materialism maintains that the motions 
of bodies are indifferent to considerations of worth, 
and denies that they issue from a deeper cause 
of another order. The very ideas of such non- 
mechanical elements or principles are here pro- 
vided with a mechanical origin. Similarly a phe- 
nomenalism, like that of Hume, takes immediate 
presence to sense as the norm of being and knowl- 
edge. Individual items, directly verified in the 
moment of their occurrence, are held to be at once 
the content of all real truth, and the source of 
those abstract ideas which the misguided ration- 
alists mistake for real truth. 

But the absolutist, on the other hand, contends 
that the thinker must mean something by the real- 
ity which he seeks. If he had it for the looking, 



CONCLUSION 401 

thought would not be, as it so evidently is, a pur- 
posive endeavor. And that which is meant by 
reality can be nothing short of the fulfilment or 
final realization of this endeavor of thought. To 
find out what thought seeks, to anticipate the con- 
summation of thought and posit it as real, is 
therefore the first and fundamental procedure of 
philosophy. The mechanism of nature, and all 
matters of fact, must come to terms with this ab- 
solute reality, or be condemned as mere appear- 
ance. Thus Plato distinguishes the world of 
" generation " in which we participate by percep- 
tion, from the "true essence ""in which we par- 
ticipate by thought; and Schelling speaks of the 
modern experimental method as the " corruption " 
of philosophy and physics, in that it fails to 
construe nature in terms of spirit. 

§ 199. Now it would never occur to a sophis- 
ticated philosopher of the present, to one who has 
Concessions thought out to the end the whole tra- 

from the Side 

of Absolutism, dition of philosophy, and felt the grav- 

Recognition . . 

of Nature. ity of the great historical issues, to 
Fkhteans. suffer either of these motives to domi- 
nate him to the exclusion of the other. Abso- 
lutism has long since ceased to speak slightingly 
of physical science, and of the world of perception. 



402 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

It is conceded that motions must be known in the 
mechanical way, and matters of fact in the matter- 
of-fact way. Furthermore, the prestige which sci- 
ence enjoyed in the nineteenth century, and the 
prestige which the empirical and secular world of 
action has enjoyed to a degree that has steadily 
increased since the Renaissance, have convinced 
the absolutist of the intrinsic significance of these 
parts of experience. They are no longer reduced, 
but are permitted to flourish in their own right. 
From the very councils of absolute idealism there 
has issued a distinction which is fast becoming 
current, between the World of Appreciation, or the 
realm of moral and logical principles, and the 
World of Description, or the realm of empirical 
generalizations and mechanical causes. 1 It is 
indeed maintained that the former of these is 
metaphysically superior; but the latter is ranked 
without the disparagement of its own proper cate- 
gories. 

With the Fichteans this distinction corresponds 
to the distinction in the system of Fichte between 
the active moral ego, and the nature which it 
posits to act upon. But the neo-Fichteans are 

1 Cf. Josiah Royce: The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 
Lecture XII; The World and the Individual, Second Series. 



CONCLUSION 403 

concerned to show that the nature so posited, 
or the World of Description, is the realm of me- 
chanical science, and that the entire system of 
mathematical and physical truth is therefore mor- 
ally necessary. 2 

§ 200. A more pronounced tendency in the 
same direction marks the work of the neo-Kan- 
The Neo- Hans. These philosophers repudiate 
Kantians. ^ spiritualistic metaphysics of Scho- 
penhauer, Fichte, and Hegel, believing the real 
significance of Kant to lie in his critical method, 
in his examination of the first principles of the dif- 
ferent systems of knowledge, and especially in his 
analysis of the foundations of mathematics and 
physics. 3 In approaching mathematics and phys- 

2 Cf. Hugo Munsterberg: Psychology and Life. The more 
important writings of this school are: Die Philosophic 
im Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts , edited by Wilhelm 
Windelband, and contributed to by Windelband, H. Rickert, 
O. Liebmann, E. Troeltsch, B. Bauch, and others. This 
book contains an excellent bibliography. Also, Rickert: 
Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis ; Die Grenzen der natur- 
wissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, and other works. Windel- 
band: Praludien; Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft. Miinster- 
berg: Grundziige der Psychologie. Eucken: Die Grundbegriffe 
der Gegenwart. 

3 Cf. F. A. Lange: History of Materialism, Book II, Chap. I, 
on Kant and Materialism; also Alois Riehl: Introduction 
to the Theory of Science and Metaphysics. Translation by 
Fairbanks. The more important writings of this school 
are: Hermann Cohen: Kant's Theorie der Erfahrung; Die 



404 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ics from a general logical stand-point, these neo- 
Kantians become scarcely distinguishable in inter- 
est and temper from those scientists who approach 
logic from the mathematical and physical stand- 
point. 

§ 201. The finite, moral individual, with his 
peculiar spiritual perspective, has long since been 
Recognition of recognized as essential to the meaning 
the individual. £ ^ e un i verse rationally conceived. 

Personal •> 

idealism. -g u ^ j n jj- g g rg ^ movement absolute 
idealism proposed to absorb him in the indivisible 
absolute self. It is now pointed out that Fichte, 
and even Hegel himself, means the absolute to be 
a plurality or society of persons. 4 It is commonly 
conceded that the will of the absolute must coincide 
with the wills of all finite creatures in their sever- 
alty, that God wills in and through men. 5 Cor- 
responding to this individualistic tendency on the 
part of absolute idealism, there has been recently 

Logik derreinen Erkenntniss, and other works. Paul Natorp: 
Sozialpadagogik; Einleitung in die Psychologie nach kritischer 
Methods, and other works. E. Cassirer: Leibniz' System in 
seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen. Riehl: Der philoso- 
phische Kriticismus, und seine Bedeutung fur die Positive 
Wissenschaft. Cf . also E. Husserl : Logische Untersuchungen. 

4 Cf. J. M. E. McTaggart: Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, 
Chap. III. 

5 Cf. Royce: The Conception of God, Supplementary Essay, 
pp. 135-322; The World and the Individual, First Series. 



CONCLUSION 405 

projected a personal idealism, or humanism, which 
springs freshly and directly from the same motive. 
This philosophy attributes ultimate importance to 
the human person with his freedom, his interests, 
his control over nature, and his hope of the ad- 
vancement of the spiritual kingdom through co- 
operation with his fellows. 6 

§ 202. Naturalism exhibits a moderation and 
liberality that is not less striking than that of 
Concessions absolutism. This abatement of its 
^Naturalism c l amis began in the last century with 
Recognition of ae - n osticism. It was then conceded 

Fundamental ° 

Principles. that there is an order other than that 
of natural science ; but this order was held to be 
inaccessible to human knowledge. Such a theory 
is essentially unstable because it employs prin- 
ciples which define a non-natural order, but re- 
fuses to credit them or call them knowledge. The 

8 This movement began as a criticism of Hegelianism in 
behalf of the human personality. Cf. Andrew Seth: Hegelian- 
ism and Personality; Man and the Cosmos; Two Lectures on 
Theism. G. H. Howison: The Limits of Evolution. The 
important writings of the more independent movement 
are: William James: The Will to Believe. H. Sturt, editor: 
Personal Idealism, Philosophical Essays by Eight Members 
of Oxford University. F. C. S. Schiller: Humanism. Henri 
Bergson: Essoi sur les donnees immediates de la conscience; 
Matiere et memoire. This movement is closely related to that 
of Pragmatism. See under § 203. 



406 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

agnostic is in the paradoxical position of one who 
knows of an unknowable world. Present-day 
naturalism is more circumspect. It has interested 
itself in bringing to light that in the very pro- 
cedure of science which, because it predetermines 
what nature shall be, cannot be included within 
nature. To this interest is due the rediscovery 
of the rational foundations of science. It was 
already known in the seventeenth century that 
exact science does not differ radically from mathe- 
matics, as mathematics does not differ radically 
from logic. Mathematics and mechanics are now 
being submitted to a critical examination which 
reveals the definitions and implications upon 
which they rest, and the general relation of these 
to the fundamental elements and necessities of 
thought. 7 

7 Cf . Bertrand Russell : Principles of Mathematics, 
Vol. I. Among the more important writings of this move- 
ment are the following: Giuseppi Peano: Formulaire de 
Mathematique, published by the Rivista di matematica, 
Tom. I-IV. Richard Dedekind: Was sind und was sollen 
die Zahlen? Georg Cantor: Grundlagen einer allgemeinen 
Mannigfaltigkeitslehre. Louis Couturat: De I'lnfini Mathe- 
matique, and articles in Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale. 
A. N. Whitehead : A Treatise on Universal Algebra. Heinrich 
Hertz: Die Prinzipien der Mechanik. Henri Poincar^: La 
Science et VHypothese. For the bearing of these investiga- 
tions on philosophy, see Royce: The Sciences of the Ideal, in 
Science, Vol. XX, No. 510. 



CONCLUSION 407 

§ 203. This rationalistic tendency in natural- 
Recognition ism is balanced by a tendency which is 

of the Will. . . 

Pragmatism, more empirical, but equally subversive 
of the old ultra-naturalism. Goethe once wrote: 

" I have observed that I hold that thought to be true 
which is fruitful for me. . . . When I know my 
relation to myself and to the outer world, I say that I 
possess the truth." 

Similarly, it is now frequently observed that all 
knowledge is humanly fruitful, and it is proposed 
that this shall be regarded as the very criterion of 
truth. According to this principle science as a 
whole, even knowledge as a whole, is primarily a 
human utility. The nature which science defines 
is an artifact or construct. It is designed to ex- 
press briefly and conveniently what man may prac- 
tically expect from his environment. This ten- 
dency is known as pragmatism. It ranges from 
systematic doctrines, reminiscent of Fichte, which 
seek to define practical needs and deduce knowl- 
edge from them, to the more irresponsible utter- 
ances of those who liken science to " shorthand," 8 
and mathematics to a game of chess. In any case 
pragmatism attributes to nature a certain depend- 
ence on will, and therefore implies, even when it 

8 The term used by Karl Pearson in his Grammar of Science. 



408 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

does not avow, that will with its peculiar principles 
or values cannot be reduced to the terms of nature. 
In short, it would be more true to say that nature 
expresses will, than that will expresses nature. 9 

§ 204. Such, then, is the contemporary eclecti- 
cism as respects the central problem of meta- 
Summary, and physics. There are naturalistic and in- 

Transition to ... . . . 

Epistemoiogy. dividualistic tendencies in absolutism ; 
rationalistic and ethical tendencies in naturalism; 
and finally the independent and spontaneous move- 
ments of personal idealism and pragmatism. 

Since the rise of the Kantian and post-Kantian 
philosophy, metaphysics and epistemoiogy have 
maintained relations so intimate that the present 
state of the former cannot be characterized with- 
out some reference to the present state of the 
latter. Indeed, the very issues upon which meta- 

9 The important English writings of the recent inde- 
pendent movement known as pragmatism are: C. S. Peirce: 
Illustrations of the Logic of Science, in Popular Science 
Monthly, Vol. XII. W. James: The Pragmatic Method, in 
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 
Vol. I; Humanism and Truth, in Mind, Vol. XIII, N. S.; The 
Essence of Humanism, in Jour, of Phil., Psych., and Sc. 
Meth., Vol. II (with bibliography); The Will to Believe. John 
Dewey: Studies in Logical Theory. W. Caldwell: Pragmatism, 
in Mind, Vol. XXV., N. S. See also literature on personal 
idealism, § 201. A similar tendency has appeared in France 
in Bergson, LeRoy, Milhaud, and in Germany in Simmel. 



CONCLUSION 409 

physicians divide are most commonly those pro- 
voked by the problem of knowledge. The counter- 
tendencies of naturalism and absolutism are always 
connected, and often coincide with, the episte- 
mological opposition between empiricism, which 
proclaims perception, and rationalism, which pro- 
claims reason, to be the proper organ of knowl- 
edge. The other great epistemological controversy 
does not bear so direct and simple a relation to the 
central metaphysical issues, and must be exam- 
ined on its own account. 

§ 205. The point of controversy is the depend- 
ence or independence of the object of knowledge 
The Antagonis- on the state of knowledge; idealism 
of Realism maintaining that reality is the knower 
Realistic Sm ' or n ^ s con t eil t of mind, realism, that 
Tendency m b e i n p- known is a circumstance which 

Empirical ° 

idealism. appertains to some reality, without 
being the indispensable condition of reality as 
such. Now the sophisticated thought of the pres- 
ent age exhibits a tendency on the part of these 
opposite doctrines to approach and converge. It 
has been already remarked that the empirical ideal- 
ism of the Berkeleyan type could not avoid tran- 
scending itself. Hume, who omitted Berkeley's 
active spirits, no longer had any subjective seat or 



410 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

locus for the perceptions to which Berkeley had 
reduced the outer world. And perceptions which 
are not the states of any subject, retain only their 
intrinsic character and become a series of elements. 
When there is nothing beyond, which appears, and 
nothing within to which it appears, there ceases 
to be any sense in using such terms as appearance, 
phenomenon, or impression. The term sensation 
is at present employed in the same ill-considered 
manner. But empirical idealism has come gradu- 
ally to insist upon the importance of the content 
of perception, rather than the relation of percep- 
tion to a self as its state. The terms element and 
experience, which are replacing the subjectivistic 
terms, are frankly realistic. 10 

§ 206. There is a similar realistic trend in the 
development of absolute idealism. The pure 
Realistic Hegelian philosophy was notably ob- 

IbsohTte 7 m J ec ti ye - The principles of development 
idealism. j n which ft centres were conceived by 

The Conception u 

of Experience. Hegel himself to manifest themselves 
most clearly in the progressions of nature and his- 
tory. Many of Hegel's followers have been led 
by moral and religious interests to emphasize con- 

10 Cf. Ernst Mach: Analysis of Sensation. Translation by- 
Williams. 



CONCLUSION 411 

sciousness, and, upon epistemological grounds, to 
lay great stress upon the necessity of the union of 
the parts of experience within an enveloping self. 
But absolute idealism has much at heart the over- 
coming of relativism, and the absolute is defined 
in order to meet the demand for a being that shall 
not have the cognitive deficiencies of an object of 
finite thought. So it is quite possible for this 
philosophy, while maintaining its traditions on the 
whole, to abandon the term self to the finite sub- 
ject, and regard its absolute as a system of rational 
and universal principles — self-sufficient because 
externally independent and internally necessary. 
Hence the renewed study of categories as logical, 
mathematical, or mechanical principles, and en- 
tirely apart from their being the acts of a think- 
ing self. 

Furthermore, it has been recognized that the 
general demand of idealism is met when reality is 
regarded as not outside of or other than knowledge, 
whatever be true of the question of dependence. 
Thus the conception of experience is equally con- 
venient here, in that it signifies what is imme- 
diately present in knowledge, without affirming it 
to consist in being so presented. 11 

11 Cf. F. H. Bradley: Appearance and Reality. 



in Realism 
The Im- 
manence 



412 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

§ 207. And at this point idealism is met by a 
latter-day realism. The traditional modern real- 
ideaiistic * sm springing from Descartes was 
dualistic. It was supposed that reality 
in itself was essentially extra-mental, 
Philosophy. an( j ^hus under the necessity of being 
either represented or misrepresented in thought. 
But the one of these alternatives is dogmatic, in 
that thought can never test the validity of its rela- 
tion to that which is perpetually outside of it; 
while the other is agnostic, providing only for the 
knowledge of a world of appearance, an improper 
knowledge that is in fact not knowledge at all. 

But realism is not necessarily dualistic, since it 
requires only that being shall not be dependent 
upon being known. Furthermore, since empiri- 
cism is congenial to naturalism, it is an easy step 
to say that nature is directly known in perception. 
This first takes the form of positivism, or the 
theory that only such nature as can be directly 
known can be really known. But this agnostic 
provision for an unknown world beyond, inevitably 
falls away and leaves reality as that which is 
directly known, but not conditioned by knowledge. 
Again the term experience is the most useful, and 
provides a common ground for idealistic realism 



CONCLUSION 413 

with realistic idealism. A new epistemological 
movement makes this conception of experience its 
starting-point. What is known as the immanence 
philosophy defines reality as experience, and means 
by experience the subject matter of all knowledge 
— not defined as such, but regarded as capable of 
being such. Experience is conceived to be both 
in and out of selves, cognition being but one of 
the special systems into which experience may 
enter. 12 

§ 208. Does this eclecticism of the age open 
any philosophical prospect? Is it more than a 
The interpre- general compromise — a confession of 
dWonasthe" failure on the part of each and every 
Basis for a radical and clear-cut doctrine of meta- 

New Con- 
struction, physics and epistemology ? There is 

no final answer to such a question short of an in- 

12 Cf. Carstanjen: Richard Avenarius, and his General 
Theory of Knowledge, Empiriocriticism. Translation by 
H. Bosanquet, in Mind, Vol. VI, N. S. Also James: Does 
Consciousness Exist ? and A World of Pure Experience, in 
Jour, of Phil., Psych., and Sc. Meth., Vol. I; The Thing and 
its Relations, ibid., Vol. II. 

The standard literature of this movement is unfortunately 
not available in English. Among the more important writ- 
ings are: R. Avenarius: Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; Der 
menschliche Weltbegriff, and other works. Joseph Petzoldt: 
Einfuhrung in die Philosophic der reinen Erfahrung. Ernst 
Mach: Die Analyse der Empfindung und das Verhaltniss des 
Physischenzum Psychischen, 2.Auff. Wilhelm Schuppe : Grund- 



414 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

dependent construction, and such procedure would 
exceed the scope of the present discussion. But 
there is an evident interpretation of tradition that 
suggests a possible basis for such construction. 

§ 209. Suppose it to be granted that the cate- 
gories of nature are quite self-sufficient. This 
The Truth of would mean that there might eonceiv- 

the Physical 

system, but ably be a strictly physical order, gov- 
tempt to Re- erned only by mechanical principles, 
perience to it. an d by the more general logical and 
mathematical principles. The body of physical 
science so extended as to include such general con- 
ceptions as identity, difference, number, quality, 
space, and time, is the account of such an order. 
This order need have no value, and need not be 
\y known. But reality as a whole is evidently not 
such a strictly physical order, for the definition of 
the physical order involves the rejection of many 
of the most familiar aspects of experience, such 
as its value and its being known in conscious selves. 
Materialism, in that it proposes to conceive the 
whole of reality as physical, must attempt to re- 

riss der Erkenntnisstheorie und Logik. Friedrich Carstanjen: 
Einfuhrung in die " Kritik der reinen Erfahrung" — an exposi- 
tion of Avenarius. Also articles by the above, R. Willy, R. v. 
Schubert-Soldern, and others, in the Vierteljahrsschrift fur 
wissenschaftliche Philosophie. 



CONCLUSION 415 

duce the residuum to physical terms, and with no 
hope of success. Goodness and knowledge can- 
not be explained as mass and force, or shown to he 
mechanical necessities. 

§ 210. Are we then to conclude that reality is 
not physical, and look for other terms to which we 
Truth of may reduce physical terms ? There is 

Psychical Re- 
lations, but ao lack of such other terms. Indeed, we 

of General could as fairly have begun elsewhere. 

Reduction „, „ 

to Them. Ihus some parts ol experience compose 

the consciousness of the individual, and are said 
to be known by him. Experience so contained is 
connected by the special relation of being known 
together. But this relation is quite indifferent to 
physical, moral, and logical relations. Thus we 
may be conscious of things which are physically 
disconnected, morally repugnant, and logically con- 
tradictory, or in all of these respects utterly irrel- 
evant. Subjectivism, in that it proposes to con- 
ceive the whole of reality as consciousness, must 
attempt to reduce physical, moral, and logical rela- 
tions to that co-presence in consciousness from 
which they are so sharply distinguished in their 
very definition. The historical failure of this 
attempt was inevitable. 

§ 211. But there is at least one further start- 



416 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ing-point, the one adopted by the most subtle 
and elaborate of all reconstructive philosophies. 
Truth of Logical necessities are as evidently real 

Logical and ° d 

Ethical Prin- as bodies or selves. It is possible to 

ciples. 

validity of define general types of inference, as 

Ideal of 

Perfection, well as compact and internally neces- 

but Impossi- 
bility of De- sary systems such as those of mathe- 

ducing the . . »,-,.. 

whole of Ex- matics. There is a perfectly distm- 
fromit. guishable strain of pure rationality in 

the universe. Whether or not it be possible to 
conceive a pure rationality as self-subsistent, inas- 
much as there are degrees it is at any rate possible 
to conceive of a maximum of rationality. But 
similarly there are degrees of moral goodness. It 
is possible to define with more or less exactness a 
morally perfect person, or an ideal moral com- 
munity. Here again it may be impossible that 
pure and unalloyed goodness should constitute a 
universe of itself. But that a maximum of good- 
ness, with all of the accessories which it might 
involve, should be thus self-subsistent, is quite 
conceivable. It is thus possible to define an abso- 
lute and perfect order, in which logical necessity, 
the interest of thought, or moral goodness, the 
interest of will, or both together, should be real- 
ized to the maximum. Absolutism conceives real- 



CONCLUSION 417 

ity under the form of this ideal, and attempts to 
reconstruct experience accordingly. But is the 
prospect of success any better than in the cases of 
materialism and subjectivism ? It is evident that 
the ideal of logical necessity is due to the fact that 
certain parts of knowledge approach it more closely 
than others. Thus mechanics contains more that 
is arbitrary than mathematics, and mathematics 
more than logic. Similarly, the theory of the evo- 
lution of the planetary system, in that it requires 
the assumption of particular distances and par- 
ticular masses for the parts of the primeval nebula, 
is more arbitrary than rational dynamics. It is 
impossible, then, in view of the parts of knowledge 
which belong to the lower end of the scale of ration- 
ality, to regard reality as a whole as the maximum 
of rationality; for either a purely dynamical, a 
purely mathematical, or a purely logical, realm 
would be more rational. The similar disproof of 
the moral perfection of reality is so unmistakable 
as to require no elucidation. It is evident that 
even where natural necessities are not antagonistic 
to moral proprieties, they are at any rate indiffer- 
ent to them. 

§ 212. But thus far no reference has been made 
to error and to evil. These are the terms which 



418 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

the ideals of rationality and goodness must repudi- 
ate if they are to retain their meaning. Never- 
En-or and Evil theless experience contains them and 
Reduced to psychology describes them. We have 
the ideal. already followed the efforts which abso- 
lute idealism has made to show that logical per- 
fection requires error, and that moral perfection 
requires evil. Is it conceivable that such efforts 
should be successful ? Suppose a higher logic to 
make the principle of contradiction the very bond 
of rationality. What was formerly error is now 
indispensable to truth. But what of the new 
error — the unbalanced and mistaken thesis, the 
unresolved antithesis, the scattered and discon- 
nected terms of thought? These fall outside the 
new truth as surely as the old error fell outside the 
old truth. And the case of moral goodness is pre- 
cisely parallel. The higher goodness may be so 
defined as to require failure and sin. Thus it may 
be maintained that there can be no true success 
without struggle, and no true spiritual exaltation 
except through repentance. But what of failure 
unredeemed, sin unrepented, evil uncompensated 
and unresolved ? Nothing has been gained after 
all but a new definition of goodness — and a new 
definition of evil. And this is an ethical, not a 



CONCLUSION 419 

metaphysical question. The problem of evil, like 
the problem of error, is as far from solution as 
ever. Indeed, the very urgency of these problems 
is due to metaphysical absolutism. For this phi- 
losophy defines the universe as a perfect unity. 
Measured by the standard of such an ideal uni- 
verse, the parts of finite experience take on a frag- 
mentary and baffling character which they would 
not otherwise possess. The absolute perfection 
must by definition both determine and exclude the 
imperfect. Thus absolutism bankrupts the uni- 
verse by holding it accountable for what it can 
never pay. 

§ 213. If the attempt to construct experience 
in the special terms of some part of experience be 
Collective abandoned, how is reality to be defined ? 
the Universe ^ ^ s ey ident that in that case there can 
as a Whole. ^ Q no d e fi n ition of reality as such. It 
must be regarded as a collection of all elements, 
relations, principles, systems, that compose it. 
All truths will be true of it, and it will be the 
subject of all truths. Reality is at least physical, 
psychical, moral, and rational. That which is 
physical is not necessarily moral or psychical, but 
may be either or both of these. Thus it is a 
commonplace of experience that what has bulk and 



420 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

weight may or may not be good, and may or may 
not be known. Similarly, that which is psychical 
may or may not be physical, moral, or rational; 
and that which is moral or rational may or may 
not be physical and psychical. There is, then, an 
indeterminism in the universe, a mere coincidence 
of principles, in that it contains physical, psy- 
chical, moral, logical orders, without being in all 
respects either a physical, a psychical, a moral, or a 
logical necessity. 13 Reality or experience itself is 
neutral in the sense of being exclusively predeter- 
mined by no one of the several systems it contains. 
But the different systems of experience retain their 
specific and proper natures, without the compro- 
mise which is involved in all attempts to extend 
some one until it shall embrace them all. If such 
a universe seems inconceivably desultory and 
chaotic, one may always remind one's self by di- 
rectly consulting experience that it is not only 
found immediately and unreflectively, but re- 
turned to and lived in after every theoretical 
excursion. 

§ 214. But what implications for life would be 

13 It is not, of course, denied that there may be other 
orders, such as, e. g., an aesthetic order; or that there may 
be definite relations between these orders, such as, e. g., 
the psycho-physical relation. 



CONCLUSION 421 

contained in such a philosophy? Even if it be 
theoretically clarifying, through being hospitable 
Moral impii- *° a ^ differences and adequate to the 
canons of such mu ltifarious demands of experience, is 
Philosophy, j^. no £ on ^^ ver y account morally 

Purity of the J J 

Good. dreary and stultifying? Is not its 

refusal to establish the universe upon moral foun- 
dations destructive both of the validity of goodness, 
and of the incentive to its attainment ? Certainly 
not — if the validity of goodness be determined by 
criteria of worth, and if the incentive to goodness 
be the possibility of making that which merely 
exists, or is necessary, also good. 

This philosophy does not, it is true, define the 
good, but it makes ethics autonomous, thus distin- 
guishing the good which it defines, and saving it 
from compromise with matter-of-fact, and logical 
or mechanical necessity. The criticism of life is 
founded upon an independent basis, and affords 
justification of a selective and exclusive moral 
idealism. Just because it is not required that the 
good shall be held accountable for whatever is real, 
the ideal can be kept pure and intrinsically worthy. 
The analogy of logic is most illuminating. If it 
be insisted that whatever exists is logically neces- 
sary, logical necessity must be made to embrace 



422 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

that from which it is distinguished by definition, 
such as contradiction, mere empirical existence, 
and error. The consequence is a logical chaos 
which has in truth forfeited the name of logic. 
Similarly a goodness defined to make possible the 
deduction from it of moral evil or moral indiffer- 
ence loses the very distinguishing properties of 
goodness. The consequence is an ethical neutral- 
ity which invalidates the moral will. A meta- 
physical neutrality, on the other hand, although 
denying that reality as such is predestined to 
morality — and thus affording no possibility of an 
ethical absolutism — becomes the true ground for 
an ethical purism. 

§ 215. But, secondly, there can be no lack of 
incentive to goodness in a universe which, though 
The incentive not all-good, is in no respect incapable 
to Goodness. £ Dec0 ming good. That which is me- 
chanically or logically necessary, and that which 
is psychically present, may be good. And what 
can the realization of goodness mean if not that 
what is natural and necessary, actual and real, 
shall be also good. The world is not good, will 
not be good, merely through being what it is, but 
is or shall be made good through the accession of 
goodness. It is this belief that the real is not 



CONCLUSION 423 

necessarily, but may be, good; that the ideal is 
not necessarily, but may be, realized ; which has 
inspired every faith in action. Philosophically it 
is only a question of permitting such faith to be 
sincere, or condemning it as shallow. If the world 
be made good through good-will, then the faith of 
moral action is rational ; but if the world be good 
because whatever is must be good, then moral 
action is a tread-mill, and its attendant and animat- 
ing faith only self-deception. Moral endeavor is 
the elevation of physical and psychical existence 
to the level of goodness. 

"Relate the inheritance to life, convert the tradition 
into a servant of character, draw upon the history for 
support in the struggles of the spirit, declare a war of 
extermination against the total evil of the world; and 
then raise new armies and organize into fighting force 
every belief available in the faith that has descended 
to you." " 

Evil is here a practical, not a theoretical, prob- 
lem. It is not to be solved by thinking it good, 
for to think it good is to deaden the very nerve of 
action ; but by destroying it and replacing it with 
good. 

§ 216. The justification of faith is in the prom- 

14 Quoted from George A. Gordon: The New Epoch for 
Faith, p. 27. 



424 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

ise of reality. For what, after all, woul be the 
meaning of a faith which declares that all things, 

The justifica- § ooc ^ ^ad, an< ^ indifferent, are everlast- 
tion of Faith. i U g\j an( j necessarily what they are — 

even if it were concluded on philosophical grounds 
to call that ultimate necessity good. Faith has 
interests; faith is faith in goodness or beauty. 
Then what more just and potent cause of despair 
than the thought that the ideal must be held ac- 
countable for error, ugliness, and evil, or for the 
indifferent necessities of nature ? 15 Are ideals to 
be prized the less, or believed in the less, when 
there is no ground for their impeachment ? How 
much more hopeful for what is worth the hoping, 
that nature should discern ideals and take some 
steps toward realizing them, than that ideals 
should have created nature — such as it is ! How 
much better a report' can we give of nature for its 
ideals, than of the ideals for their handiwork, if 
it be nature ! Emerson writes : 

" Suffice it for the joy of the universe that we have 
not arrived at a wall, but at interminable oceans. Our 
life seems not present so much as prospective ; not for 
the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this 
vast-flowing vigor. Most of fife seems to be mere ad- 

15 Cf. James: The Will to Believe, essay on The Dilemma 
of Determinism, passim. 



CONCLUSION 425 

vertisement of faculty; information is given us not to 
sell ourselves cheap; that we are very great. So, in 
particulars, our greatness is always in a tendency or 
direction, not in an action. It is for us to believe in the 
rule, not in the exception. The noble are thus known 
from the ignoble. So in accepting the leading of the 
sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the 
immortality of the soul or the like, but the universal 
impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance and 
is the principal fact in the history of the globe." 16 

§ 217. If God be rid of the imputation of moral 
evil and indifference, he may be intrinsically wor- 
The Worship ship ful, because regarded under the 

and Service r»ii-i • a -i • r» i 

of God. form of the highest ideals. And if the 

great cause of goodness be in fact at stake, God 
may both command the adoration of men through 
his purity, and reenforce their virtuous living 
through representing to them that realization of 
goodness in the universe at large which both con- 
tains and exceeds their individual endeavor. 

§ 218. Bishop Berkeley wrote in his " Com- 
monplace Book " : 

" My speculations have the same effect as visiting foreign 
countries : in the end I return where I was before, but my 
heart at ease, and enjoying life with new satisfaction." 

If it be essential to the meaning of philosophy 

that it should issue from life, it is equally essen- 

16 Essays, Second Series, p. 75. 



426 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

tial that it should return to life. But this con- 
nection of philosophy with life does not mean its 
The Phiioso- reduction to the terms of life as con- 

pher and the 

standards of ceived in the market-place. Philosophy 

the Market- 

place. cannot emanate from life, and quicken 

life, without elevating and ennobling it, and will 
therefore always he incommensurable with life 
narrowly conceived. Hence the philosopher must 
always be as little understood by men of the street 
as was Thales by the Thracian handmaiden. He 
has an innocence and a wisdom peculiar to his 
perspective. 

" When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say 
in answer to the civilities of his adversaries, for he knows 
no scandals of anyone, and they do not interest him; 
and therefore he is laughed at for his sheepishness; and 
when others are being praised and glorified, he cannot 
help laughing very sincerely in the simplicity of his heart ; 
and this again makes him look like a fool. When he 
hears a tyrant or king eulogized, he fancies that he is 
listening to the praises of some keeper of cattle — a swine- 
herd, or shepherd, or cowherd, who is being praised for 
the quantity of milk which he squeezes from them; and 
he remarks that the creature whom they tend, and out 
of whom they squeeze the wealth, is of a less tractable 
and more insidious nature. Then, again, he observes 
that the great man is of necessity as ill-mannered and 
uneducated as any shepherd, for he has no leisure, and 
he is surrounded by a wall, which is his mountain-pen. 
Hearing of enormous landed proprietors of ten thousand 



CONCLUSION 427 

acres and more, our philosopher deems this to be a trifle, 
because he has been accustomed to think of the whole 
earth; and when they sing the praises of family, and 
say that some one is a gentleman because he has had 
seven generations of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that 
their sentiments only betray the dulness and narrow- 
ness of vision of those who utter them, and who are not 
educated enough to look at the whole, nor to consider 
that every man has had thousands and thousands of 
progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, 
kings and slaves, Hellenes and barbarians, many times 
over." 17 

It is not to be expected that the opinion of 
the " narrow, keen, little, legal mind " should 
appreciate the philosophy which has acquired 
the " music of speech," and hymns " the true 
life which is lived by immortals or men blessed of 
heaven." Complacency cannot understand rever- 
ence, nor secularism, religion. 

§ 219. If we may believe the report of a con- 
The Secular- temporary philosopher, the present age 

ism of the 

Present Age. is made insensible to the meaning of 
life through preoccupation with its very achieve- 
ments : 

" The world of finite interests and objects has rounded 
itself, as it were, into a separate whole, within which 
the mind of man can fortify itself, and live securus ad- 
versus deos, in independence of the infinite. In the 

17 Plato: Thecetetus, 174-175. Translation by Jowett. 



428 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

sphere of thought, there has been forming itself an ever- 
increasing body of science, which, tracing out the rela- 
tion of finite things to finite things, never finds it neces- 
sary to seek for a beginning or an end to its infinite 
series of phenomena, and which meets the claims of 
theology with the saying of the astronomer, 'I do not 
need that hypothesis.' In the sphere of action, again, 
the complexity of modern life presents a thousand isolated 
interests, crossing each other in ways too subtle to trace 
out — interests commercial, social, and political — in pur- 
suing one or other of which the individual may find 
ample occupation for his existence, without ever feeling 
the need of any return upon himself, or seeing any reason 
to ask himself whether this endless striving has any 
meaning or object beyond itself." 18 

§ 220. There is no dignity in living except 
it be in the solemn presence of the universe ; and 
The Value of only contemplation can summon such a 

Contemplation 

for Life. presence. Moreover, the sessions must 

be not infrequent, for memory is short and visions 
fade. Truth does not require, however, to be fol- 
lowed out of the world. There is a speculative 
detachment from life which is less courageous, 
even if more noble, than worldliness. Such is 
Dante's exalted but mediaeval intellectualism. 

" And it may be said that (as true friendship between 
men consists in each wholly loving the other) the true 
philosopher loves every part of wisdom, and wisdom 

18 E. Caird: Literature and Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 218-219. 



CONCLUSION 429 

every part of the philosopher, inasmuch as she draws 
all to herself, and allows no one of his thoughts to wander 
to other things." 

Even though, as Aristotle thought, pure contem- 
plation be alone proper to the gods in their per- 
fection and blessedness, for the sublunary world 
this is less worthy than that balance and unity of 
faculty which distinguished the humanity of the 
Greek. 

" Then," writes Thucydides, " we are lovers of the beau- 
tiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind 
without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk 
and ostentation, but when there is a real use for it. To 
avoid poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is 
in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does 
not neglect the State because he takes care of his own 
household ; and even those of us who are engaged in busi- 
ness have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a 
man who takes no interest in public affairs not as a 
harmless, but as a useless character ; and if few of us are 
originators, we are all sound judges, of a policy. The 
great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discus- 
sion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by 
discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar 
power of thinking before we act, and of acting too, 
whereas other men are courageous from ignorance, but 
hesitate upon reflection." 19 

Thus life may be broadened and deepened with- 
out being made thin and ineffectual. As the civil 

10 Translation by Jowett. Quoted by Laurie in his Pre- 
Christian Education, p. 213. 



430 THE APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY 

community is related to the individual's private 
interests, so the community of the universe is re- 
lated to the civil community. There is a citizen- 
ship in this larger community which requires a 
wider and more generous interest, rooted in a 
deeper and more quiet reflection. The world, how- 
ever, is not to be left behind, but served with a 
new sense of proportion, with the peculiar forti- 
tude and reverence which are the proper fruits 
of philosophy. 

" This is that which will indeed dignify and exalt 
knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more 
nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than 
they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two 
highest planets: Saturn, the planet of rest and contem- 
plation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and 
action." 20 

20 Bacon: Advancement of Learning, Book I. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The references contained in this bibliography have been 
selected on the score of availability in English for the general 
reader and beginning student of philosophy. But I have 
sought wherever possible to include passages from the great 
philosophers and men of letters. These are placed first in 
the list, followed by references to contemporary writers and 
secondary sources. 

CHAPTER I, THE PRACTICAL MAN AND THE 
PHILOSOPHER. 

Plato: Republic, especially Book VII. Translations by 
Jowett and Vaughan. Theaetetus, 172 ff. Trans- 
lation by Jowett. 

Aristotle: Ethics, Book X. Translation by Welldon. 

Marcus Aurelius : Thoughts. Translation by Long. 

Epictetus: Discourses. Translation by Long. 

Bacon: The Advancement of Learning. 

Emerson: Representative Men — Plato; or the Philosopher. 
Conduct of Life — Culture. Essays, Second Series 
— Experience. 



Royce, Josiah: Spirit of Modern Philosophy. Introduction. 
Hibben, J. G.: Problems of Philosophy. Introduction. 

CHAPTER II, POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

Plato: Republic, Books II and III. Translation by Jowett. 

(Criticism of the poets as demoralizing.) 
Wordsworth: Observations Prefixed to the Second Edition of 

the Lyrical Ballads. 
Shelley: Defence of Poetry. 

431 



432 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Everett, C. C. : Poetry, Comedy, and Duty. (Discussion of the 
philosophy of poetry.) Essays, Theologi- 
cal and Literary. (On the poetry of Emer- 
son, Goethe, Tennyson, Browning.) 
Caird, Edward: Literature and Philosophy. (Wordsworth, 

Dante, Goethe, etc.) 
Royce, Josiah: Studies of Good and Evil. Essay on Tennyson 

and Pessimism. 
Santa y ana, George: Poetry and Religion. (Philosophy of 
poetry; Greek poetry, Shakespeare, 
etc.) 
Sneath, E. H.: Philosophy in Poetry: A Study of Sir John 
Davies's Poem, "Nosce Teipsum." 

CHAPTERS III AND IV, RELIGION. 

Plato: Republic, Book III. Translations by Jowett and 
Vaughan. (Criticism of religion from the stand- 
point of morality and politics.) 
St. Augustine: Confessions. Translation by Pusey. (Docu- 
ment of religious experience.) 
Thomas a. Kempis: Imitation of Christ. Translation by 
Stanhope. (Mediaeval programme of 
personal religion.) 
Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise. Translation by El- 
wes. (One of the first great pleas for religious 
liberty and one of the first attempts to define the 
essential in religion. 
Kant: Critique of Pure Reason — The Canon of Pure Reason. 
Translation by Max Miiller. Critique of Practical 
Reason. Translation by Abbott in Theory of Ethics. 
(Defines religion as the province of faith, distin- 
guishes it from knowledge, and relates it to mo- 
rality.) 
Schleiermacher : On Religion. Speeches to its Cultured De- 
spisers. Translation by Oman. (Pon- 
derous, dogmatic in its philosophy, but 
profound and sympathetic in its under- 
standing of religion.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 433 

Arnold: Literature and Dogma. (On the essence of religion 
as exemplified in Judaism and Christianity.) 



Sabatier, A.: Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on 
Psychology and History. Translation by 
Seed. Religions of Authority and the Re- 
ligion of the Spirit. Translation by Hough- 
ton. (These books emphasize the essential 
importance of the believer's attitude to 
God.) 
James, William: The Varieties of Religious Experience. (A 
rich storehouse of religion, sympatheti- 
cally interpreted.) 
Everett, C. C. : The Psychological Elements of Religious Faith. 
(A study in the definition and meaning of 
religion.) 
Caird, Edward: Evolution of Religion. (Indoctrinated with 

the author's idealistic philosophy.) 
Fielding, H. : The Hearts of Men. (A plea for the universal 
religion. Special feeling for Indian re- 
ligions.) 
Harnack, A. : What is Christianity ? Translation by Saun- 
ders. (Attempt to define the essence of 
Christianity.) 
Palmer, G. H.: The Field of Ethics, Chapters V and VI. (On 

the relation of ethics and religion.) 
Brown, W. A.: The Essence of Christianity. (Special study 

of the definition of religion.) 
Jastrow, M. : The Study of Religion. (Method of history and 

psychology of religion.) 
Smith, W. Robertson: The Religion of the Semites. (Excel- 
lent study of tribal religions.) 
Clarke, W. N.: What Shall We Think of Christianity ? (An 

interpretation of Christianity.) 
Leuba, J. H. : Introduction to a Pyschological Study of Re- 
ligion. In The Monist, Vol. XI, p. 195. 
Starbtjck, E. D. : The Pyschology of Religion. 



434 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CHAPTER V, THE PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM 
OF SCIENCE.* 

Plato: Republic, Book VII, 526 ff. Translations by Jowett 
and Vaughan. Phaedo, 96 ff. Translation by 
Jowett. 
Berkeley: Alciphron, the Fourth Dialogue. Siris, espe- 
cially 234-264. (On the failure of the scientist 
to grasp the deeper truth respecting causes 
and substances.) 
Descartes: Discourse on Method. Translation by Veitch. 
Spinoza: On the Improvement of the Understanding. Trans- 
lation by Elwes. 
Kant: Critique of Pure Reason — Transcendental ^Esthetic and 
Transcendental Analytic. Translation by Max Miil- 
ler. (Studies of the Method of Science.) 



Ward, James: Naturalism and Agnosticism. (Full but clear 
account of recent development of natural 
science, and criticism of its use as phi- 
losophy.) 
Mach, Ernst: Science of Mechanics. (Historical and meth- 
odological.) 
James, William: Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, Chap, 
xxviii. (Emphasizes the practical in- 
terest underlying science.) 
Royce, Josiah: The World and the Individual, Second Series, 
Man and Nature. (Interpretation of the 
province of natural science from the stand- 
point of absolute idealism.) 
Pearson, Karl: The Grammar of Science. (The limits of 

science from the scientific stand-point.) 
Clifford, W. K.: Lectures and Essays: On the Aims and In- 
struments of Scientific Thought; The Phi- 
losophy of the Pure Sciences; On the Ethics 
of Belief. 

* For further contemporary writings on this topic, see foot-notes under 
§§ 199, 200, 203. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 435 

Huxley, T. H.: Method and Results. (The positivistic posi- 
tion.) 

Muensterberg, Hugo: Psychology and Life. (Epistemo- 
logical limitations of natural sci- 
ence applied to psychology, from 
idealistic stand-point.) 

Fullerton, G. E. : A System of Metaphysics, Part II. 

Taylor, A. E. : Elements of Metaphysics, Book III. 

CHAPTERS VI AND VII, THE SPECIAL PROBLEMS 
OF PHILOSOPHY. 

Plato: Dialogues, especially Protagoras and Theaetetus. 
Translation by Jowett. (The actual genesis of 
special problems.) 



Kuelpe, Oswald : Introduction to Philosophy. Translation by 
Pillsbury and Titchener. (Full and ac- 
curate account of the traditional terms 
and doctrines of philosophy.) 
Hibben, J. G. : Problems of Philosophy. (Brief and elementary.) 
Sidgwick, Henry: Philosophy, its Scope and Relations. 
Paulsen, Friedrich: Introduction to Philosophy. Transla- 
tion by Thilly. 
Baldwin, J. M.: Dictionary of Philosophy. (Full, and con- 
venient for reference.) 
Ferrier, J. F.: Lectures on Greek Philosophy. (Interpreta- 
tion of the beginning and early develop- 
ment of philosophy.) 
Burnet, J.: Early Greek Philosophy. Translation of the 

sources. 
Fairbanks, A. : The First Philosophers of Greece. 
Gomperz, Th.: Greek Thinkers, Vol. I. Translation by Mag- 
nus. (On the first development of phil- 
osophical problems.) 
Palmer, G. H.: The Field of Ethics. (On the relations of 

the ethical problem.) 
Puffer, Ethel: The Psychology of Beauty. (On the rela- 
tions of the sesthetical problem.) 



436 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CHAPTER VIII, NATURALISM.* 

Lucretius: On the Nature of Things. Translation by Munro. 

(Early materialism.) 
Hobbes: Metaphysical System. Edited by Calkins. Levia- 
than, Part I. (Modern materialism.) 



Buechner, Louis: Force and Matter. Translation by Colling- 
wood. (Nineteenth century material- 
ism.) 
Janet, Paul: Materialism of the Present Day. Translation 

by Masson. 
Lange, F. A.: History of Materialism. Translation by 

Thomas. 
Haeckel, Ernst: The Riddle of the Universe. Translation by 

McCabe. ("Monism of Energy.") 
Clifford, W. K.: Lectures and Essays: The Ethics of Belief; 
Cosmic Emotion; Body and Mind. (Pos- 
itivism.) 
Huxley, T. H.: Evolution and Ethics; Prologomena. (Dis- 
tinguishes between the moral and natural.) 
Science and Hebrew Tradition; Science and 
Christian Tradition. (Controversies of 
the naturalist with Gladstone and Duke 
of Argyle.) 
Spencer, Herbert: First Principles. (The systematic evo- 
lutionary philosophy.) Principles of 
Ethics. (Ethics of naturalism.) The 
Nature and Reality of Religion. (Con- 
troversy with Frederick Harrison.) 
Balfour, A. J.: Foundations of Belief, Part I. (On the re- 
ligious, moral, and aesthetic consequences 
of naturalism.) 
Pater, Walter: Marius the Epicurean. (Refined hedo- 
nism.) 
Romanes, G. J.: Thoughts on Religion. (Approached from 
stand-point of science.) 

* For histories of philosophy, see supplementary bibliography at end. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 437 

Bentham, J.: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and 

Legislation. (Utilitarian.) 
Stephen, L.: Science of Ethics. (Evolutionary and social.) 

CHAPTER IX, SUBJECTIVISM. 

Plato : Theaetetus. Translation by Jowett. (Exposition and 

criticism of Protagoras.) 
Berkeley: Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous; 

Principles of Human Knowledge. 
Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 
Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Idea. Translation 

by Haldane and Kemp. 
Mill, J. S.: An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Phi- 
losophy, X-XIII. 



Clifford, W. K.: Lectures and Essays: On the Nature of 

Things in Themselves. (Panpsychism.) 
Deussen, Paul: Elements of Metaphysics. Translation by 
Duff. (Following Schopenhauer and 
Oriental philosophy.) 
Paulsen, Fr.: Introduction to Philosophy. (Panpsychism.) 
Strong, C. A.: Why the Mind Has a Body. (Panpsychism.) 
James, William: Reflex Action and Theism, in The Will to 
Believe. (Morality and religion of in- 
dividualism.) 

CHAPTER X, ABSOLUTE REALISM. 

Parmenides: Fragments. Arrangement and translation by 

Burnet or Fairbanks. 
Plato: Republic, Books VI and VII. Translations by Jowett 
and Vaughan. Symposium, Phozdrus, Phosdo, Phil- 
ebus. Translation by Jowett. 
Aristotle*: Psychology. Translations by Hammond and 
Wallace. Ethics. Translation by Welldon. 

* The Metaphysics of Aristotle, Fichte, and Hegel must be found by 
the English reader mainly in the secondary sources. 



438 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Spinoza: Ethics, especially Parts I and V. Translations by 
Elwes and Willis. 

Leibniz: Monadology, and Selections. Translation by Latta. 
Discourse on Metaphysics. Translation by Mont- 
gomery. 

Marcus Aurelitjs : Thoughts. Translation by Long. 

Epictetus: Discourses. Translation by Long. 



Caird, Edward: The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Phi- 
losophers. (The central conceptions of 
Plato and Aristotle.) 

Joachim: A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza. 

CHAPTER XI, ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 

Descartes: Meditations. Translation by Veitch. 
Kant: Critique of Pure Reason. Translation by Max Miiller. 
Critique of Practical Reason. Translation by Ab- 
bott, in Kant's Theory of Ethics. 
Fichte*: Science of Ethics. Translation by Kroeger. Popu- 
lar Works: The Nature of the Scholar; The Voca- 
tion of Man; The Doctrine of Religion. Transla- 
tion by Smith. 
Schiller: Msthetic Letters, Essays, and Philosophical Letters. 

Translation by Weiss. (Romanticism.) 
Hegel*: Ethics. Translation by Sterrett. Logic. Transla- 
tion, with Introduction, by Wallace. Philosophy 
of Mind. Translation, with Introduction, by 
Wallace. Philosophy of Religion. Translation 
by Spiers and Sanderson. Philosophy of Right. 
Translation by Dyde. 
Green, T. H. : Prolegomena to Ethics. 

Emerson: The Conduct of Life — Fate. Essays, First Series — 
The Over-Soul; Circles. Essays, Second Series — 
The Poet; Experience; Nature. (The apprecia- 
tion of life consistent with absolute idealism.) 
Wordsworth: Poems, passim. 
Coleridge: Aids to Reflection. The Friend. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 439 

Royce, J.: Spirit of Modern Philosophy. (Sympathetic ex- 
position of Kant, Fichte, Romanticism, and 
Hegel.) The Conception of God. (The episte- 
mological argument.) The World and the In- 
dividual, First Series. (Systematic devel- 
opment of absolute idealism; its moral and 
religious aspects.) 
Caird, Edward: The Critical Philosophy of Kant. (Exposi- 
tion and interpretation from stand-point 
of later idealism.) 
Everett, C. C: Fichte' s Science of Knowledge. 
McTaggart, J. M. E.: Studies in Hegelian Dialectic. Studies 
in Hegelian Cosmology. 

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE HIS- 
TORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 

I— GENERAL. 

Rogers: Student's History of Philosophy. (Elementary and 

clear; copious quotations.) 
Weber: History of Philosophy. Translation by Thilly. (Com- 
prehensive and compact.) 
Windelband: A History of Philosophy. Translation by Tufts. 
(Emphasis upon the problems and their de- 
velopment.) 
Erdmann: History of Philosophy. Translation edited by 
Hough; in three volumes. (Detailed and accu- 
rate exposition.) 
Ueberweg: A History of Philosophy. Translation by Morris 
and Porter, in two volumes. (Very complete; 
excellent account of the literature.) 

II.— SPECIAL PERIODS. 

Ferrier: Lectures on Greek Philosophy. (Excellent intro- 
duction.) 
Marshall: Short History of Greek Philosophy. (Brief and 
clear.) 



440 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Windelband: History of Ancient Philosophy. Translation by 
Cushman. (Very accurate and scholarly; 
also brief.) 
Zeller: Pre-Socratic Philosophy. Translation by Alleyne. 
Socrates and the Socratic Schools. Translation by 
Reichel. (Full and accurate.) 
Gomperz: Greek Thinkers. Translated by Magnus, in four 
volumes. (Very full ; especially on Plato. Goes 
no further than Plato.) 
Burnet: Early Greek Philosophy. (Translations of frag- 
ments, with commentary.) 
Fairbanks: The First Philosophers of Greece. (Translations 

of fragments, with commentary.) 
Turner: History of Philosophy. (Excellent account of 

Scholastic philosophy.) 
Royce: The Spirit of Modern Philosophy. (Very illumin- 
ating introductory exposition of modern idealism.) 
Falckenberg : History of Modern Philosophy. 
Hoeffding: History of Modern Philosophy. Translation by 
Meyer, in two volumes. (Full and good.) 



INDEX 



Absolute, the, 307, 309, 332, 
391, 392, 400, 404; being, 
308; substance, 312; ideal, 
326; spirit, 349 {note), 358 
ff.; mind, 349 {note), 358, 
380, 322 ff. 

Absolute Idealism, chap, xi; 
general meaning, 177, 349 
{note), 400; criticism of, 349, 
365, 385, 411, 416; epistemol- 
ogy of, 368 ff . ; as related 
to Kant, 380; direct argu- 
ment for, 383; ethics of, 386 
ff.; religion of, 390 ff . ; of 
present day, 402 ff., 410. 

Absolute Realism, chap, x; 
general meaning, 306 {note), 
400; epistemology of, 339; 
ethics of, 342; religion of, 
346; criticism of, 338, 416. 

Abstract, the, 139. 

Activity, 209, 285, 295. 

.(Esthetics, 189. 

Agnosticism, 168, 252 ff. 

Anaxagoras, 239 ; quoted, 162. 

Anaximander, 224. 

Anselm, Saint, 200. 

Anthropomorphism, 109. 

Appreciation, 25, 402. 

Aristotle, in formal logic, 186 ; 
ethics of, 195, 345; psy- 
chology of, 208; philosophy 
of, 306, 332 ff . ; and Plato, 
333, 336; and Spinoza, 336; 
epistemology of, 339 ; religion 
of, 346, 429; on evil, 353. 

Atomism, 166, 229. Also see 
under Leucippus, and De- 
mocritus. 

Attitude, 62. 

Attribute, in Spinoza, 312 ff. 

Augustine, Saint, on com- 
munion with God, 68; on 
pietism, 195; his conception 
of self, 372. 

Automatism, 248. 



Baal, religion of, 88. 

Bacon, Francis, on thought 
and action, 430. 

Balfour, A. J., on materialism, 
264. 

Beauty, in aesthetics, 189; in 
Plato, 327, 332. 

Being, Eleatic conception of, 
308 ff. 

Belief, key to definition of re- 
ligion, 58; general characters 
applied to religion, 59 ff . ; in 
persons and dispositions, 62; 
examples of religions, 66 ff . ; 
object of religions, 65, 82, 
97 ; relation to logic, 182, 183. 

Bentham, 262. 

Berkeley, on idealism, 176; 
relation to common - sense, 
267; his refutation of ma- 
terial substance, 275 ff . ; epis- 
temology of, 277, 296, 369; 
theory of mathematics, 279; 
his spiritualism, 280, 284, 
292; his conception of God, 
284, 293; ethics of, 302; re- 
ligion of, 304. 

Buddhism, 78. 

Cause, in science, 131 ; God as 
first, 203; of motion, 231 f f . ; 
spirit as, 293 ff. 

Christianity, persistence of, 
76; essence of, 86; develop- 
ment from Judaism, 94; 
ethics of, 195, 198, 386; idea 
of God in, 200 ff., 205; em- 
phasis on self-consciousness 
in, 372. 

COMTE, 115. 

Contemplation, 428. 

Conversion, 69 ff. 

Corporeal Being, 224; proc- 
esses of, 225; Berkeley's 
critique of, 278; historical 
conceptions of, 229. 



441 



442 



INDEX 



Cosmological Proof, the, of 
God, 203. 

Cosmology, general meaning 
of, 159; mechanism in, 161, 
225; teleology in, 161. 

Cosmos, origin of, 242. 

Critical Method, 319 ff. 

Cynicism, 259. 

Cyrenaicism, 259. 

Dante, as philosopher-poet, 42 
ff . ; general meaning of the 
Divine Comedy, 43; and 
Thomas Aquinas, 43, 46; 
his vision of the ways of God, 
46; on contemplation, 428. 

Darwin, 204. 

Deism, 207. 

Democritus, 247. Also see 
Atomism. 

Descartes, on function of 
philosophy, 154; dualism of, 
272, 412; his theory of space 
and matter, 229; automa- 
tism of, 248 ; epistemology of, 
341, 375; his conception of 
self, 374. 

Description, as method of 
science, 128. 

Dialectic, in Plato, 320; in 
Hegel, 361. 

Diogenes, 259. 

Dogmatism, 167. 

Dualism, general meaning, 
162; of Descartes, 272, 412. 

Duty, 196, 356, 360, 386. 

Eclecticism, contemporary, 
398 ff., 413. 

Eleatics. See under Parmen- 
ides, and Zeno. 

Emerson, on spirit, 359; on 
nature, 364; on absolute, 
392; on necessity, 393; on 
faith, 424. 

Empiricism, general meaning, 
168; in logic, 187; in natural- 
ism, 252 ff.; of Locke, 274; 
of Berkeley, 274 ff. 

Energy, development of, con- 
ception of, 236 ff. 

Epistemology, relation to 
metaphysics, 150; definition 
of, 164; fundamental prob- 
lems of, 168, 172; argument 



for God from, 202; of natu- 
ralism, 248, 252 ff., 257; of 
Descartes, 273, 341, 375; of 
Berkeley, 277, 296; of ab- 
solute realism, 339, 351 ; of 
Leibniz, 340, 341; of Plato, 
340, 341; of Hume, 376; of 
Aristotle, 340, 341; of abso- 
lute idealism, 351, 368 ff.; 
of present day, 408 ff. 

Eternal, the, 309. 

Ether, 230. 

Ethics, relation to metaphys- 
ics, 151, 196 ff., 360 ; its origin 
in Socratic method, 181; 
definition of, 191 ; special 
problems and theories in, 
191 ff.; of Socrates, 192, 194; 
of Aristotle, 195, 345; of 
naturalism, 258 ff . ; of sub- 
jectivism, 298 ff. ; of Schopen- 
hauer, 299; argument for 
God from, 203; individual- 
ism in, 301 ; pluralism in, 302, 
421 ; of Stoics and Spinoza, 
342; Platonic, 342; of Kant, 
386; of absolute idealism, 
388. 

EuDiEMONISM, 195. 

Evil, Problem of, 317, 336, 
339, 352, 365 ff.; in Greek 
philosophy, 352; in absolute 
idealism, 367, 418. 

Evolution, of cosmos, 242 ff . ; 
of morality, 262. 

Experience, 410, 411, 412; 
analysis of, by Kant, 354. 

Faith, 424 ; special interests of, 
199. See also Religion and 
Belief. 

Ferguson, Chas., quoted, 265. 

Fichte, 360, 402. 

Fielding, H., quoted on re- 
ligion, 59, 74. 

Force, development of con- 
ception of, 231 ff. 

Form, in Aristotle, 334. 

Freedom, in ethics, 196, 388; 
meanings and theories, 211. 

God, as guarantee of ideals, 18, 
425; personality of, 62, 108 
f f . ; St. Augustine's commun- 
ion with, 68; presence of, 68; 



INDEX 



443 



as a disposition from which 
consequences may be ex- 
pected, 85; meaning of, in 
religion, 87 ; idea of, in Juda- 
ism and Christianity, 92; 
why historical, 102; social 
relation with, 103; the onto- 
logical proof of, 200; ethical 
and epistemological argu- 
ments for, 202; cosmological 
proof of, 203; teleological 
proof of, 204; relation to the 
world, in theism; pantheism 
and deism, 205 ff. ; will of, 
212; conception of, in Berke- 
ley, 284, 293 ff. ; conception 
and proof of, in Spinoza, 
312 ff., 392, 393; conception 
of, in Plato, 331, 352, 391, 
393; conception of, in Leib- 
niz, 338, 353. Also see Ab- 
solute. 

Goethe, on Spinoza, and on 
philosophy, 51; on pragma- 
tism, 407. 

Good, the, theories of, in ethics, 
191 ff. ; and the real, 326 ff., 
421 ff. 

Greek, religion, in Homer and 
Lucretius, 89; ideals, 195, 
198 429. 

Green, T. H., quoted, 369, 
385 (note). 

Haeckel, quoted, 236, 266. 

Hedonism, 192. 

Hegel, on science, 129; philos- 
ophy of, 150, 361 ff.; rela- 
tion to Kant, 381 ; on the ab- 
solute, 382; ethics of, 390. 

Heraclitus, 308. 

History, philosophy of, in 
Hegel, 363. 

Hobbes, his misconception of 
relations of philosophy and 
science, 115; quoted on eth- 
ics, 261. 

Holbach, 251, 252. 

Homer, on Greek religion, 90. 

Humanism, 320, 404, 405. 

Hume, positivism of, 115, 377; 
phenomenalism of, 283; and 
Descartes, 376. 

Huxley, quoted, 255, 266. 

Hylozoism, 225. 



Ideal, the, in Plato, 326 ; valid- 
ity of, 416. 

Idealism, various meanings of 
term, 173 (note) ; meaning of, 
as theory of knowledge, 175 
ff., 409; of present day, 409 
ff . ; empirical, see Subjec- 
tivism, Phenomenalism, 
Spiritualism; absolute, see 
Absolute Idealism. 

Ideals, in life, 10 ff. ; adoption 
of, 17 ff. 

Ideas, the, in Plato, 329. 

Imagination, in poetry, 99; 
place of, in religion, 80, 97 
ff. ; special functions of, in 
religion, 101 ff. ; scope of, in 
religion, 105 ff. ; and the 
personality of God, 110. 

Imitatio Christi, quoted, 68. 

Immanence Theory, 412, 413. 

Immortality, 212. 

Individualism, 301, 320, 338, 
404. 

Intuitionism, in ethics, 196. 

James, William, quoted on re- 
ligion, 65, 71, 305. 

Judaism, development of, 92; 
and Christianity, 94. 

Kant, his transcendentalism, 
177, 356; his critique of 
knowledge, 354 ff., 377 ff.; 
and absolute idealism, 380; 
ethics of, 386. 

Kepler, quoted, 129. 

Knowledge, of the means in 
life, 8; of the end, 10; in 
poetry, 27 f f . ; in religion, 82, 
85, 97, 105; general theory 
of, on epistemology, 164 ff. ; 
problem of source and cri- 
terion of, 168 ff. ; problem of 
relation to its object, 172 ff., 
277, 340, 351, 368 ff.; rela- 
tion of logic to, 183 ff. ; ac- 
count of, in naturalism, 253 
ff . Also see Epistemology. 

La Mettrie, quoted, 250. 

La Place, 242; quoted, 241. 

Leibniz, on function of philos- 
ophy, 155; philosophy of, 
333, 336 ff . ; epistemology of, 
339. 



444 



INDEX 



Letjcippus, quoted, 161. 

Life, as a starting-point for 
thought, 3; definition of, 
5 ff. ; and self-consciousness, 
6; philosophy of 17 ff., 153 
mechanical theory of, 244 ff . 
return of philosophy to, 427 
ff. ; contemplation in, 428. 

Locke, epistemology of, 273. 

Logic, origin in Socratic meth- 
od, 181; affiliations of, 182, 
188; definition of, 183; parts 
of formal, 184 ff. ; present 
tendencies in, 187 ff. ; alge- 
bra of, 189. 

Lucretius, his criticism of 
Greek religion, quoted, 89 
ff.; on mechanism, 226, 240. 

McTaggart, J. M. E., on Hegel, 
367; on the absolute, 391. 

Mach, E., 283; on philosophy 
and science, 120. 

Malebranche, 376. 

Marcus Aurelius, 348. 

Materialism, 254, 256; gen- 
eral meaning, 223, 414; de- 
velopment, 224 ff.; and 
science, 228; French, 249; 
theory of mind in, 250. 

Mathematics, importance in 
science, 132; logic in, 188; 
Berkeley's conception of, 
279; Plato's conception of, 
329, 335; Spinoza's concep- 
tion of, 311, 335. 

Matter, 225, 228; and space, 
229 ; Berkeley's refutation of, 
275 f f . ; in Plato and Aristotle, 
334. 

Mechanical, Theory, practi- 
cal significance of its exten- 
sion to the world at large, 
20; in cosmology, 161, 225; 
of Descartes, 231 ; of Newton 
232; of origin of cosmos, 
242; of fife, 244; in Spinoza, 
336. 

Metaphysics, relation to epis- 
temology, 150; relation to 
ethics, 151, 196 ff. ; definition 
of, 158; relation to logic, 188; 
relation to theology, 207; 
present tendencies in, 399 
ff., 408. 



Mill, J. S., 283 (note). 

Mind, explanation of in nat- 
uralism, 237, 247 ff . ; of God, 
in Berkeley, 284, 294, 296; 
absolute, 349 (note), 358, 
382 ff . Also see under Self, 
and Soul. 

Mode, in Spinoza, 313. 

Monads, in Leibniz, 338. 

Monism, 159, 163. 

Morality, and religion, 73; 
grounds of, according to 
Kant, 356; incentive to, 422. 

Mysticism, general account, 
171; Schopenhauer's, 290; 
types of religions, 391. 

Naegeli, C. v., quoted, 287. 

Natural Science, true rela- 
tions of, with philosophy, 
116; sphere of, with reference 
to philosophy, 117 ff.; phil- 
osophy of, its procedure, 121, 
135, 142, 154, 401; origin of, 
as special interest, 123 ff.; 
human value of, 126, 127, 
143; method and fundament- 
al conceptions of, 406, 128 
ff. ; general development of, 
134; limits of, because ab- 
stract, 136 ff., 414; validity 
of, 142; logic and, 188; de- 
velopment of conceptions in, 
229 ff . ; grounds of, according 
to Kant, 355, 377; Hume on, 
377; permanence and prog- 
ress in, 395 ff. 

Natural Selection, 204, 245. 

Naturalism, chap, viii; gen- 
eral meaning, 217, 223 (note), 
399 ; claims of, 239 ; task of, 
241; criticism of, 117, 257, 
263 ; of present day, 405, 412. 
Also see under Materialism, 
and Positivism. 

Nature, 160, 244, 337; in 
Berkeley, 294; in Spinoza, 
317, 338; in Hegel, 363; in 
Kant, 377 ff. ; in contem- 
porary philosophy, 401. 
Also see Natural Science, 
and Naturalism. 

Nebular Hypothesis, 242. 

Necessity, of will, 211 ; ethics 
of, 342; religion of, 393. 



INDEX 



445 



Neo-Fichteans, 402, 403 

(note). 
Neo-Kantians, 403. 
Newton, 232, 235, 242, 355, 

377. 
Normative Sciences, the, 180. 

Omar Khayyam, quoted, 16; 

as a philosopher-poet, 36. 
Ontological Proof, of God, 

200. 
Ontology, 159. 
Optimism, 104, 388, 422, 424. 

Panpsychism, 176, 238, 285 ff. 

Pantheism, in primitive re- 
ligion, 78; general meaning, 
205; types of, 390. 

Parker, Theodore, quoted on 
religion, 67. 

Parmenides, and rationalism, 
168; philosophy of, 308 ff., 
337; and Aristotle, 336. 

Pater, Walter, on Words- 
worth, 38; on Cyrenaicism, 
260; on subjectivism, 270. 

Paulsen, Friedrich, ethics of, 
quoted, 302. 

Pearson, Karl, quoted, 230. 

Perception. See Sense-per- 
ception. 

Personal Idealism, 404, 405. 

Personality, of God, impor- 
tant in understanding of re- 
ligion, 62; essential to relig- 
ion? 108 ff. 

Persons, description of be- 
lief in, 62; imagination of, 
101, 110. 

Pessimism, 104, 299, 424. 

Phenomenalism, general 
meaning, 176, 267 (note); of 
Berkeley, 272, 275 ff.; of 
Hume, 283; various ten- 
dencies in, 281. 

Philosopher, the practical 
man and the, chap, i; the 
role of the, 306, 426. 

Philosophy, commonly mis- 
conceived, 3; of the devotee, 
13; of the man of affairs, 14; 
of the voluptuary, 16; of life, 
its general meaning, 17 ff., 
153; its relations with poetry, 
chap, ii, 112; lack of, in 



Shakespeare, 33; as expres- 
sion of personality, 33; as 
premature, 33 ; in poetry of 
Omar Khayyam, 36 ; in poe- 
try of Wordsworth, 38 ff . ; in 
poetry of Dante, 42 ff . ; differ- 
ence between philosophy and 
poetry, 48 ff. ; in religion, 108 
ff . ; compared with religion, 
112; true attitude of, toward 
science, 116; sphere of, in re- 
lation to science, 117, 395 ff. ; 
procedure of, with reference 
to science, 121, 135, 142, 
154, 160; human value of, 
143, 426 ff. ; can its problem 
be divided? 149, 155; origin 
of, 157; special problems of, 
chap, vi, vii; and psychol- 
ogy, 216; peculiar object of, 
308; self-criticism in, 319 
ff., 325; permanence and 
progress in, 395 ff. ; contem- 
porary, 398 ff. 

Physical. See Corporeal 
Being, Materialism, etc. 

Physiology, 246. 

Piety, description and inter- 
pretation of, 72; in ethics, 
195. 

Plato, on Protagoras, 167, 269, 
270, 298; quoted, on Socra- 
tes, 170, 192, 194; historical 
preparation for, 324; psy- 
chology of, 209; philosophy 
of, 306, 318, 326 ff., 382; 
and Aristotle, 333; and 
Spinoza, 318, 335; epistemol- 
ogy of, 339, ethics of, 342; 
religion of, 346, 391, 393; on 
evil, 352; on spirit, 359; 
on reason and perception, 
370; on the philosopher, 426. 

Pluralism, general meaning 
of, 159, 163, 419; in ethics, 
302, 421 ff. ; in religion, 304. 

Poetry, relations with phi- 
losophy, chap, ii; as appre- 
ciation, 25; virtue of sincer- 
ity in, 27; the "barbarian" 
in, 28; constructive knowl- 
edge in, 30; difference be- 
tween philosophy and, 48 ff. 

Positivism, on relation of 
philosophy and science, 115, 



446 



INDEX 



122; general meaning of , 168, 
234, 252 ff., 412. 

Practical Knowledge, of 
means, 8 ff. ; of end or pur- 
pose, 10 ff. ; implied in relig- 
ion, 85, 97; philosophy as, 
153. 

Practical Man, the, and the 
philosopher, chap, i ; his 
failure to understand phi- 
losophy, 3; his ideal, 14; virt- 
ually a philosopher, 22. 

Pragmatism, 151, 407, 408. 

Prayer, 103. 

Prediction, in science, 130. 

Present Day, philosophy of 
the, 398 ff. 

Protagoras, scepticism of, 
166, 271; subjectivism of, 
269; ethics of, 298. 

Psychology, of religion, 58, 
82; inadequate to religion, 
82; as branch of philosophy, 
208 ff., 216; as natural 
science, 213; affiliations of, 
215; limits of, 415. 

Psycho-physical Parallel- 
ism, 215, 252. 

Purpose, in life, 10 ff. ; adop- 
tion of life-purpose, 17 ff. ; 
practical significance of, in 
the world at large, 20. Also 
see Teleology, Ideal, etc. 

Qualities, primary and sec- 
ondary, 254, 274, 277. 

Rationalism, general meaning, 
168, 416; in logic, 180, 184; 
in ethics, 193; of eleatics, 
310; of Spinoza, 311; in ab- 
solute realism, 339; criti- 
cism of, 418. 

Realism, various meanings of 
term, 173 (note) ; meaning of, 
as theory of knowledge, 172; 
of Parmenides, 308 ff . ; of 
Plato and Aristotle, 341; of 
present day, 409 ff. 

Reason, 370. See Ration- 
alism. 

Relativism, 166, 267 ff.; in 
ethics, 298. 

Religion, chaps, iii, iv; rela- 
tion to poetry and phi- 



losophy, 49, 52; difficulty of 
defining, 53; possibility of 
defining, 54 ; profitableness 
of defining, 54; true method 
of defining, 56; misconcep- 
tions of, 56; as possessing 
the psychological character 
of belief, 59 ff . ; degree of, in 
individuals and moods, 60, 
61 ; definition of, as belief in 
disposition of universe, 64 
ff., 82; and morality, 73; 
symbolism in, 75; prophet 
and preacher of, 75; con- 
veyance of, 76; primitive, 
77; Buddhism, 78; the criti- 
cal or enlightened type of, 
80; means to be true, 82 ff. ; 
implies a practical truth, 
85; cases of truth and error 
in, 88 ff. ; of Baal, 88; Greek, 
89 ; of Jews, its development, 
92 ; Christian, 94 ; definition of 
cognitive factor in, 97; place 
of imagination in, 80, 97 ff. ; 
special functions of imagina- 
tion in, 101 ff. ; relation of 
imagination and truth in, 
105; philosophy implied in, 
108 ff. ; is personal god es- 
sential to, 108; compared 
with philosophy, 112; com- 
pared with science, 145; 
special philosophical prob- 
lems of, 199 ff. ; of natural- 
ism, 263 ff. ; of subjectivism 
and spiritualism, 302 ff. ; 
of Plato and Aristotle, 346, 
393; of Stoics and Spinoza, 
348, 393; philosophy of, in 
Hegel, 365 ; of absolute ideal- 
ism. 390 ff. 

Religious Phenomena, inter- 
pretation of, 69 ff. 

Representative Theory, of 
knowledge, 174, 412. 

Romanticism, 361. 

Rousseau, quoted on nature, 
64. 

Royce, Josiah, quoted on 
absolute idealism, 178, 384, 
394. 

Santayana, George, quoted 
on poetry 28, 29. 



INDEX 



447 



Scepticism, 166, 267 ff. See 
under Positivism, and Ag- 
nosticism. 

Schelling, misconception of 
science, 116. 

Scholasticism, 333; idea of 
God in, 201. 

Schopenhauer, his panpsych- 
ism or voluntarism, 177, 
285 ff. ; universalizes subjec- 
tivism, 290; mysticism of, 
290; ethics of, 299; religion 
of, 303. 

Science. Also see under Na- 
tural Science, and Nor- 
mative Science. 

Secularism, of Shakespeare, 
34; of Periclean Age, 320; 
of present age, 427. 

Self, problem of, 216; proof of, 
in St. Augustine, 372; proof 
of, in Descartes, 374; deeper 
moral of, 387; in contempo- 
rary philosophy, 411, 413. 
Also see Soul, and Mind. 

Self-consciousness, essential 
to human life, 6; develop- 
ment of conception of, 371 
f f . ; in absolute idealism, 383 ; 
in idealistic ethics, 386. 

Sensationalism, 247, 255, 269. 

Sense-perception, 168, 247, 
269, 370; being as, in Berke- 
ley, 281. 

Shakespeare, general criti- 
cism of, 30 ff . ; his universal- 
ity, 31; lack of philosophy 
in, 33. 

Shelley, quoted on poetry, 50. 

Social Relations, belief in- 
spired by, analogue of re- 
ligion, 62; imagination of, 
extended to God, 101. 

Socrates, rationalism of, 169; 
and normative science, 180; 
ethics of, 192, 194; method 
of, 321 ff. 

Sophists, the, epistemology of, 
165; scepticism of, 271, 320; 
ethics of, 298, 301; age of, 
320. 

Soul, the, in Aristotle, 208; in 
Plato, 209; as substance, 
209 ; intellectualism and vol- 
untarism in theory of, 210; 



immortality of, 212; Berke- 
ley's theory of, 284. Also see 
under Mind, and Self. 

Space, importance in science, 
130; and matter, 229. 

Spencer, 236 (note), 243, 265. 

Spinoza, and Goethe, 51; 
quoted on philosophy and 
life, 153; philosophy of, 306, 
311 f f . ; criticism and esti- 
mate of, 315 ff. ; and Plato, 
318, 335; and Aristotle, 336; 
epistemology of, 339; ethics 
of, 342; religion of, 348, 392, 
393. 

Spirit, the absolute, 358 ff. 

Spiritualism, general mean- 
ing, 176, 267 (note) ; in Berke- 
ley, 280, 292; in Schopen- 
hauer, 285; criticism of, 288; 
objective, 292. 

Stevenson, R. L., quoted on 
religion, 67. 

Stoicism, ethics of, 342; relig- 
ion of, 348. 

Subjectivism, chap, ix; gen- 
eral meaning, 175, 218, 267 
(note), 415; in aesthetics, 190; 
of Berkeley, 275 ff . ; univer- 
salization of, in Schopen- 
hauer, 290; criticism of, 297, 
415; ethics of, 298 ff.; in ab- 
solute idealism, 368; of pres- 
ent day, 409. 

Substance, spiritual, 209, 284; 
material, Berkeley's refuta- 
tion of, 275 ff . ; Spinoza's 
conception of, 311; the in- 
finite, in Spinoza, 312; Aris- 
totle's conception of, 334; 
Leibniz's conception of, 338. 

Symbolism, in religion, 75. 

Teleology, in cosmology, 161 ; 

proof of God from, 204; 

Spinoza on, 318; in Plato, 

326 ff., 336; in Aristotle, 

336. 
Theism, 205. 
Theology, relation to religion, 

98; in philosophy, 199 ff.; 

relation to metaphysics, 207. 
Thomson, J., quoted, 104. 
Thought, and life, 6 ff. ; as 

being, in Hegel, 361 ff. 






448 



INDEX 



Thucydides, on thought and 

action, 429. 
Time, importance in science, 

130. 
Transcendentalism, 177, 349 

(note), 356. See Idealism, 

absolute. 
Tyndall, 115. 

Universal, scientific knowl- 
edge as, 125, 139. 

Universe, the, as object of 
religious reaction, 64; com- 
mon object of philosophy 
and religion, 112; as collec- 
tive, 419. 

Utilitarianism, 261. 



Virtue, 198, 345. 
Voltaire, quoted, 231, 251. 
Voluntarism, in psychology, 
210; in Schopenhauer, 285. 

Whitman, Walt, 27 ff. 

Will, in psychology, 210; free- 
dom and determination of, 
211; in Schopenhauer, 177; 
as cause, in Berkeley, 293 
ff. ; in pragmatism, 407. 

Wordsworth, as philosopher- 
poet, 38 ff . ; his sense for the 
universal, 40; quoted on 
poetry and philosophy, 48, 50. 

Zeno, 337. 



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